NEVERMORE

American Literature a Series of Unreliable Narrators

Edgar Allan Poe
" Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not"? (The Black Cat).

He calls it a "perpetual inclination" to break the law, to defy what we know as good and right.
Is this something perpetual, cyclical, something put into motion long ago that cannot be stopped? Should any man or woman who feels the inclination to do such horrid things as to hang their first true love their trustworthy cat, act upon that inclination?

If we could divide every moment, every decision, every idea we have ever had and divide it into what is true and good verses what is wrong and bad what would we find lurking behind those decisions?

After all, Poe's narrator tells us, he committed the act simply because he knew it was wrong!

Doesn't every good girl want a bad guy sometimes? Doesn't every guy want what he can't have?
Doesn't every girl in the Chasity Club ( thank you Glee) want to be a little bit dirty sometimes? We've all heard of the overprotective father or mother that keeps their daughter so sheltered during her young adult life that when she is in college she quickly goes from

The ideals of Chasity to the ideals of Christina?













(Sorry Christina I know you're not like this anymore.)

These are overgeneralized stereotypes but don't we see these common themes in all of our dramatic comedies played over and over again, a different group of big name actors a different setting and time?



In our class discussion today we talked about about insanity and what insanity means.
Some questions were brought up that I found to be interesting:

Does environment make a difference?
What is the influence of sound?

The question of environment brings to mind Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall Paper
this story about a woman who is confined in one room in her house as her psychosis progresses. She becomes infatuated and obsessed with the wall paper in the room and she is both haunted by it and seems to adore it in some ways as her mental health declines.


We also talked about other haunting questions like,
Who and what governs me?
Who decides what is right and best for me?
What do I tell myself about ME?

Poe's narrators tells us that we cannot rely on the self. The self is dangerous, it is an entity that perpetuates destruction. They banter with Thoreau and Emerson's Self Reliance, saying, I pitty you fools that rely on the self, you that depend on yourself to govern the mind and the soul because the self is out to get you! The self will corrupt and destroy you because the self plays off of it's own vulnerability, the self knows exactly where its Achilles heel is, exactly where all the crippling painful memories are stored that can be so utterly debilitating.
Tim Burton knows the essentials to making the horrors of the Gothic genre hilarious by putting a satirical spin on it..... listen and watch closely for Poe's Black Cat as you watch this...and don't forget to look for the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper..scrawling with a pen about the house possessing her...






Tim Burton's Vincent in the voice of Vincent Price


Who is Vincent Price: The legend behind the voice?

Vincent Price - House On Haunted Hill - Trailer check out this trailer to see who Vincent Price is in his work

Interesting biographical information on Poe: Edgar died unexpectedly and of unknown causes. It is said that he died of "congestion of the brain" which could be related to several different disorders and physical states. It is said that Poe said a quick prayer before he died saying, "Lord, help my poor soul".There are many theories and ideas surrounding the cause of Poe's death from rabies to epilepsy.

An odd charter with an even more mysterious death.