Sample Solution

Edgar Allan Poe does a good job of using literary devices to absorb the reader into his stories, like in “ A tell-tale heart” when he uses a first-person narrator whose crazy and his mental state has us questioning if he is sane. This is turn adds suspense to the story. He also uses irony in this story. The narrator in the story claims he is sane when he, in fact, acts the opposite. He spends the whole story telling the reader of how he is looking at the old man and how his crime will prove he is not insane. This has the opposite effect as it proves his insanity.
Poe also does a great job at symbolism in his stories. In “Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator keeps hearing a heartbeat which represents his conscience after they committed the crime.
Poe writing reflected the times he was living in. His stories included despair and melancholy which reflected the effects of the romantic movement of the early nineteenth century. One of his major inspirations of his career was his wife Virginia, he wrote “Annabel Lee” upon her death. Being left by both parents also affected his writings. Since the early loss of his parents and the traumatic death of his young wife from tuberculosis, a death that Poe never recovered and as a result we see his despair in his stories reflected many times in his writing. “The Raven” is a perfect example of this as the main story is about the madness of a young man mourning the death of his wife.
Edgar Allan Poe was a great writer. Poe was highly intelligent and well educated, allowing him to use a huge selection of peoples, locations, and emotions to draw from in his stories. He builds up imagery and sensory with such details that it helps the reader to set the mood for the story. He builds up narrators that were either struggling with mental issues, or frightfully unreliable, the same one writers do today.