“The Most Famous Tragedy: Edgar Allan Poe”
By Tom Bellitire Word Count: 796
Drugs, depression, mystery, alcoholism, and tragedy plagued Edgar Allan Poe and his work. Poe commonly used similar scenarios in his short stories and poems to make a fusion of intelligence and tragedy. Since Poe experimented with many forms of opium, his imagination was greatly widened. In time, a chain of events happen, which leads him to become mad.
In Poe’s early life depression haunted him around every corner. His dad left his mother before he was born (Neurotic Poets 1). Soon afterwards, Edgar Allan Poe’s mother died of consumption (tuberculosis) (Neurotic Poets 1). Poe and his other siblings became orphans and had to look for other families to stay with (Neurotic Poets 1). Just about the only luck Poe got was a chance to live with a family who never legally adopted him. They later sent him to a University, where Poe fell into a large gambling debt (Echoes 2). He then decided to enlist in the army, felling it was his only hope in life, and got discharged soon afterwards (Eprentice 2). His “dad” felt that Poe was an embarrassment and disowned him from that day on (Echoes 2). Poe became depressed and found one of his greatest loves in his life, Alcohol (Neurotic Poets 4).
When ever Poe became troubled, he felt drinking would help his problems. He had almost no resistance to alcohol throughout his life making him an easy target for Alcoholism (Neurotic Poets 4). When his thirteen year old wife die, Poe immediately turned to his two passions: alcohol and writing (Eprentice 2). He constantly used alcohol as his emotional crutch throughout his short life (Stewart, Anna 1). Later in Poe’s life, he got engaged, but his fiancée called off the wedding, because he could not give up alcohol for her (Neurotic Poets 7). Poe even stayed in jail for being intoxicated in public (Stewart, Anna 1). Though Poe would not write while drunk, he did incorporate some experiences of intoxication in his stories like “The Black Cat” (Stewart, Anna 1).
Opium was a powerful component of Poe’s writings. Just like alcohol, he became just as easily addicted to this mind blowing drug. At first, Poe began to experiment with Laudanum, which is another form of opium (Neurotic Poets 7). Later, he began to take it for his illnesses (MathPages 1). When his wife, Virginia died, Poe began to also take it for depression (MathPages 1). This chain reaction led Poe to a massive addiction, which almost all the time he became addicted (Echoes 4). Poe began to have Opium dreams after constant uses, and used these dreams to create a colorful yet distorted theme throughout his stories (MathPages 1). When Opium started to atrophy him and no longer let go of his depression, he purposely overdosed, attempting to kill himself (MathPages 1).
Poe’s mind now distorted beyond comprehension writes like he has never written before. His first award winning writing, “Ms. Found in a Bottle”, was written during his early stages of Opium usage (Neurotic Poets 5). While his wife Virginia was dieing of consumption (tuberculosis), he wrote “The Conqueror Worm”, to describe the pain and agony of death (Neurotic Poets 9). While Poe was overdosed on Laudanum, he managed to write “To Annie” (Stewart, Anna 1). When Poe’s Fiancee called off the wedding, he wrote “Tamerlane”, to describe his emotions toward the events (MathPages 1). Towards the end of his life, Poe wrote “The Raven” for his newspaper job, which can national attention and even got a reprint (Neurotic Poets 6).
Edgar Allan Poe left this world with a haunting mystery, just like his stories. It all started when his fiancee left him two days before their wedding (Neurotic Poets 5). He mysteriously left on a drinking sprawl for 5 long days, which no one knew about. Since he had few people that cared about him at the time, no one was really out looking for him. Eventually, Poe is found delirious in a street gutter in Baltimore, Maryland; not to far from his home. When he was found, he was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital. When he arrives he becomes violent but very immobile and would not drink water without difficulty. Poe eventually dies that night mysteriously with out a known cause or disease (Neurotic Poets 11).
Poe lived a depressing life misguided by drugs, which greatly influenced mainly of his writings. Without any of these things, Poe’s original stories might not have been quite so phenomenal. “His work reflects the sorrowful, unfortunate life he was handed at an early stage”; basically, creating another genre through personal tragedies (Eprentice 3). Poe’s unfortunate life brought him to fame, along with a little hard work and a great mind
