It's Cold and Damp out- Let's talk Edgar Allen Poe

The “inner life” seems to be a recurring topic in the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Despite how different or similar his characters are there always seems to be something going on inside of them, below the surface. Some great examples of this are “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The Cask of Amontillado”. In the “Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is obviously suffering from some sort of psychological disorder or distress, though it isn’t clearly stated, nor can I say for sure what disorder or disorders it might be. Most of the action takes place in his head, or is caused by his own thoughts. To explain further, he watches the old man sleep for eight nights before deciding the time is right to kill him. The fact that he does this rather than kill the old man on the first night exhibits to me that there is something going on inside his mind, which the reader can’t understand. Once the murder takes place and he chops up and hides the old man’s remains, there is very little actual action, yes the police come but they appear, at least according to the narration, not to suspect him of any crime. By contrast the narrator slowly but surely begins to slip deeper and deeper into hysteria, hearing what he believes to be the beating of the dead man’s heart and then confessing the entire story of the murder to the police, begging them to rip up the floor boards because he believes that the beating is coming from under them. Another character that has an “inner life” is Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado”, whom I believe has an internal need to control everything around him, perhaps because he also suffers from a psychological disorder. In the very beginning of the story he states that he seeks revenge-which ends up being murder- against Fortunato for insulting him, however he still considers Fortunato his friend. This is an odd conflict of the mind on Montresor’s part. After luring Fortunato to his home under the misconception that he has a bottle of light Spanish sherry that he’d like to share with him, the men descend into the home’s vaults and down into the crypts. There Montresor chains a very inebriated Fortunato to a stone and then walls him in as Fortunato pleads for his freedom. After being completely walled in Fortunato becomes silent which annoys Montressor. The degree to which Montresor got his revenge proves that he had strategically planned it out well in advance, mastering every detail and thus controlling the situation. He had to get rid of all potential witnesses to the crime, as well as plot a way to get his “friend” to come over and go into the cellar. Also, the annoyance he encounters when Fortunato no longer begs for his freedom, exhibits Montresor’s need to be in control and have everything go according to his plan. He had obviously envisioned Fortunato pleading until he no longer could speak and when this doesn’t happen his vision becomes wrong and he looses control to some degree. Lastly, there is some “inner life” taking place in the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” for both the narrator and Roderick Usher. There is some reason, which the reader is unable to understand, why the narrator stays at the house when there are such strange things going on, such as Usher’s sick sister and the house falling apart. I feel that it is some psychological reason causing this, not a disorder but something in his psyche. Also the narrator doesn’t see Usher’s sister on his own, it is only after convincing by Usher that he even sees her and even then it’s only brief. As for Roderick Usher, I believe that he is also experiencing some sort of psychological issues. These might be caused at least partially by the continued incest in his family tree, since for generations the family tree hasn’t branched out. Because of this, he is having difficulty dealing with the death and dying of his sister because the family line will either have to die with him or he will have to marry someone outside of the Usher family. There is also the possibility that his sister may indeed not exist at all, and that she is simply a figment of his askew mental state. I say this because of the fact that it takes his urging for the narrator to sense Madeline’s presents or see her. To sum up this paper, the characters of these stories indeed have some interior force or forces that make their lives and actions very different from other people and definitely different from the lives that we, the readers have.