A Study Of Edgar Allan Poe's Horror Tales—An Interpretation From Freudian Psychoanalytic Perspective

Edgar Allan Poe is a distinguished writer in American Romantic period. Different from his contemporaries, he chose to explore themes like murder, revenge and death and developed a style characterized by grotesque and horror. The black traits in his writing made him neglected by the then literary circle and it was not until in the 20th century that his works drew extensive attention from the academic world.Poe's literary genres mainly cover short stories, poems and literary criticism. His short stories, with their artistic consummation, developed the gothic tradition by probing into the deep recesses of the human psyche. This thesis tries to interpret the former under the theoretical framework of Freudian psychoanalytic theory.Part one is an introduction, which traces the history of both Poe's reputation and related researches in the literary world, providing a broad critical background for the interpretation to be conducted.Part two gives a brief introduction to the theories of psychoanalysis, laying a theoretical foundation for the interpretation of Poe's works.Part three makes a generalization of Poe's horror tales and tries to interpret the works by the application of Freudian psychoanalytic theories: to understand"The Oval Portrait"and"The Fall of the House of Usher"through the daydreaming theory; to appreciate"The Masque of the Red Death"and"William Wilson"by adopting theory of personality structure; to reflect in"The Tell-Tale Heart"and"Metzengerstein"the author's complex of mother fixation; to explore in"A Cask of Amontillado"and"The Black Cat"the relationship between sublimation and anxiety. By means of psychoanalytic approach, this thesis tries to disclose the author's creational motives, works and aims in a psychological depth, thus providing theoretical evidence to a better understanding of the relevance between the text and the author's own life experience.Based on the analysis, this thesis concludes that the creation of Poe's horror tales is greatly influenced by his life experience. An early loss of parents, indifference and cruelty of the foster father, and the successive deaths of the beloved brought him much agony and torture. This tragic experience has exerted great impact on Poe's literary creations and propositions. Through the interpretation of Poe's horror tales from psychoanalytic perspective, we find in works the shadow of the author and an inner world full of anguish and misery.