Edgar Allen Poe makes tales of imagination and fantasies the irrefutable realms of fear. His tales and poems “have influenced the literary schools of symbolism…as well as the popular genres of detective and horror fiction (Stern xxxviii). However, as many of Poe’s tales and poems conjure terror and trepidation, they also penetrate the imagination with fantasy. Poe repeatedly attempts and succeeds at making his readers endure analogous feelings as those characters in his works. The most common realms Poe writes about are dreams, fantasies, the subconscious, and glimpses of the afterlife. These realms cannot be directly represented since individuals cannot directly comprehend them. Poe, acknowledged for his works involving the supernatural, masters tales involving a gothic atmosphere. Poe’s darker self troubles him, and in his tales of revenge and murder, his characters mirror the conflicts of his life. Poe has a grievance; he knows he possesses a fine intellect and extraordinary ability, although he never receives the rewards, which he feels entitled. Many of his colleagues say, “there was a sadistic streak in him too, a malicious and wanton desire to hurt others for the perverse satisfaction it gave him” (Stern 288). “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” deal with a murderer who commits a crime a successful crime and escapes the consequences. Then, the killer betrays himself and confesses through sheer perverseness. In some of Poe’s tales, “the murderer and the murdered merge their identities into one” (Myerson 287). “The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of Poe’s most compact and brilliantly executed tales. It does not carry the gothic trappings some of his tales use, causing this tale to “read like a modern, tautly written psychological story” (Stern 289).Poe favors death and terror over any other genre. Death remains...
