The Mind of a Genius Or A Mad Man?
By: EdwardBella7
Have you ever read something that was completely and utterly different from either a common thought or idea? Was it something that made you think or did it totally change your view on a topic? There are writers in this world that can get your imagination sparking like an electrical storm. Personally, my favorite author that can do that is Edgar Allan Poe. He has changed the perspectives of the world with one instrument, the pen. Poe is thought to be one of the greatest horror writers of the world. His work contains the strength to over-power our imagination, and frighten us by showing us the not-so-glamorous side of life. He entertains us with the simple day to day life of a perhaps mad-man. However, his work did not grow in popularity immediately. As you probably know, people do not always react the same way to things. If there is a common majority that doesn't like something we try to shun or ban it. We deem it mad or crazy and try to focus on the "real life situations."
"Where does such an idea come from?" people ask. That is a good question that needs to be answered with the perspectives of both sides of the story.
Alcohol and drugs. Those two things come together in a person, and you get someone who won't make a good decision for himself. You get someone who is very stupid and cannot focus. In Edgar Allan Poe's case, though, most, of his work was written under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Does this mean Poe was a genius or just mad? According to Poe he states that genius is a result of madness. Poe viewed himself as a genius, but does that mean that all talented writers are mad?
Taking a closer look into Poe's writing you see each story is about a feeling or characteristic of a human. One of his more famous stories titled Tell Tale Heart has the human feeling of guilt. The story tells about a man with a crazy mind who has captured and kept, in a spare bedroom, an old man. Who is going crazy from the torture of the crazy-minded man holding him prisoner. Every night while the old man is sleeping the crazy man sticks his head in the door to watch him sleep. Every night he does this, however, there is always an "eye" watching him. OOOOOOOOoooooo…….Creepy! This eye drives the man to an extreme craziness and he murders the old man in his sleep one night when he was going to watch. He takes the corpse and hides it underneath the floor boards of the spare bedroom Yuck! Just as he finishes there comes a knock at the door and there are police men standing there holding a photograph of the old man. They were looking for him. Naturally, the crazy man denied seeing the old man and invited the officers in for something to drink. While they are all sipping coffee and laughing, the crazy man gets a very strange ringing in his ears. When he looks at the officers he finds them still joking and laughing like they could not ear this annoying ring in the crazy man's head. Interesting? Finally the crazy man cannot take it any more and runs into the spare bedroom, tears up the floor boards, and rips out the beating heart of the old man.
That is where the story ends, but in our minds the moral continues and we learn from someone else's mistake. We learn that if you or something bad or wrong it will eventually come back and turn the tables on you.
In the poem The Raven by Poe he tells another story of a man who is sleeping in his home when a raven comes and taps on his window waking him. When he lets the bird in it flies up and lands on top of his door. This man questions the bird asking its name. "Nevermore" states the bird. That's all it says. The man finds this very peculiar and strange. He was driving himself insane with this raven just sitting upon his door. Then he calls the raven a "thing of evil" thinking it was sent by Satan to tempt him into being evil. I think he's taking this just a little too far. He drives himself so insane it kills him. While he lies on the floor, the bird remains perched on top of the chamber door.
This story tells a tale of someone whose imagination drives him too far and ends up dead in thinking of something evil. Do you see the connection between these stories? I do. Look at them again. Tell Tale Heart, a crazy man kills someone who is also going crazy. The Raven, a man who goes crazy and kills himself from thinking something is evil. See it now? These two stories, along with many others, show a little bit about the minds of a crazy person. Could this be the mind of Edgar Allan Poe? His genre of horror was either loved or hated by people, and most of the time that seems to determine weather he's crazy or not. What do you think?
Are you feeling mixed emotions for Poe? Do you like his style, but think he's still insane in the head? You are not the only one. People of his time could not make up their own minds either. Even thought most found Poe to be insane, there were a slim few who thought Poe's work to be great. One who did respect Poe is someone we all know. He even used some samples of Poe's writing in his campaign for president! His name was Abraham Lincoln. He stated, he "owed a great debt to the poet for his wonderful creativity." I don't think any president today would even consider doing something like that! Charles Baudelaire, a French poet, also found Poe's work to be exceptionally mesmerizing. It showed the "not so glamorous side of life" with fiction to jazz it up. Like in The Raven, it was totally fake but it shows something that is quite possible. His words have great depth and "accessories are appropriate to the feelings of the character."
Now, for every person who likes something there has to be someone who does not like it. Aldous Huxley, an English author, found Poe's writing to be either very bland, or too much. He found no musical rhythm or rhyme to Poe's lines. Some words Huxley stated about Poe's work were, "Poe's poems lack manners or common relation between people and the work." He later went on to state, "Poe drew seriousness to fake disasters, but treated them like they were real."
Clearly there are some issues that were not solved in the past. Poe would and could be looked at as either a genius or insane. Even calling him an insane genius would land you on the side of a situation. What about today? How do we view his work today? There are some differences in the way our country is sun, and in the way we learn to accept new ideas. Could we have possibly learned to accept this author's way of writing?
Poe has influenced or even angered people in an interesting variety of ways. Even now! Out of some of the people I have come in contact with about Poe they have given me a lot to think about, but one thing seems to remain the same. People like to think that everyone needs to be open minded about what we see in our lives and not just the same things that are always seen in our cinemas and daily activities. People have also come to a close conclusion that Poe's work is pure genius. They gave come back to mea saying that sometimes being a genius is often "cousin to insanity" which is where Poe's fame, and style, pretty much came from. To all the people who think that books should be banned, well, I find you very closed minded. Edgar Allan Poe has been deemed inappropriate or gruesome in certain points of view. For younger students I understand that his work would not be appropriate or even understood. However, in school and public libraries his books should remain for the people who can understand the differences in the world. I see people every day trying to ban things they have no intention of reading. If you have read the book you are more that welcome to have an opinion. Most authors grow and prosper from the critiques that come along discussing a piece of their writing. However, that does not give you the right to take away the opportunity to read different ideas from others. By banning literature that you do not find normal in daily life you are just trying to get everyone to be exact clones of each other, which I find very offensive. If you don't like it, there is no law that states you have to read it. I know our society was taught better than that!
Edgar Allan Poe is known for his horror stories and creative poetry. He has either haunted us with his tales or inspired us to be creative with our own minds. His work is the result of some mad disease he had n his mind the forty years he lived on this planet of ours. The choice is yours whether he is the person you love or hate. However, keep in mind while making your decision that you need to be open to all of the possibilities that not only Poe, but the world can offer our always growing minds.
Work Cited
Bloom, Harold. Bloom's Bio Critiques Edgar Allan Poe. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002. 43-64.
Meltzer, Milton. Edgar Allan Poe A Biography. Brookfield, Connecticut: Twenty-First Century Books. 2003.
Readings On Edgar Allan Poe. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1998.
Salisbury, Allen. The Shiller Institute. FIDELIO Magazine. 16 March 2007. .org/fid_02-06/
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 13 March 2007. .org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe#Career