poe

Being stuck in a nightmare is like being stuck in the darkest corners of one’s own mind. Trapped with strange images, and shadowy creatures, this horrific scene is so realistic, that one believes it is actually happening. This is when people are faced with what they fear most. When people dream, their unconscious mind pulls out all the thoughts and images that were being suppressed, and turns them into a whirlwind of terrifying events. Edgar Allan Poe’s apparent focus on the “gruesome and grotesque, the melodramatic and the bizarre,” (Carlson 1), derives from the dream world. His stories seem so dreadfully realistic because he would have horrible nightmares of his own, and get up and write down everything he could remember. By turning his dreams into stories they are able to delve into the human psyche revealing information about the structure of the human mind. For example in The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe journeys into the depth of the mind, examining it’s construction...