An Analysis Of Aberrant Personalities In Edgar Allan Poe’s Horror Story

As a unique writer of the American Romanticism, Edgar Allan Poe could not accept by his contemporary literary circle for his grotesque and eerie style, and also for the theme of killing, death, and revenge. It is not until the first half of the twentieth century that the academia has been given an extensive attention to his works.Different from traditional narrative skill of depicting psychological condition, the psychological state of Poe’s heroes is depicted directly through the text. Poe defines the psychological state as "aberrant minds." It is "a primitive impulse of human mind, an inseparable part of forming human primitive faculty or emotion,""it is an original power without any motivation". His explanation of "aberrant minds" happens to coincide in Freud’s concept of "id" and Jung’s theory of "sub-consciousness."Although it is widely acknowledged that Poe’s works have been received a far-ranging study from several different aspects such as culture study, feminism, aestheticism, Gothicism and psychoanalysis, some fields still need more explorations. What do those characters in his horror stories hold in common and how they related with each other? What is the inner psychological connection and what is the driving force of variation for the type of character? Questions like this still need further discussions.In this thesis, the author intends to interpret the psychological condition, development, and variation of the characters in E. A Poe’s horror stories by personality psychology theory. The methodology of literature review, comparative study, and autobiographical exploration will be served as auxiliary. The characters in the story such as The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell Tale Heart, William Wilson and The Man in the Crowd will be the pivot texts for analysis. The main analysis includes the symptom and development of the character’s perverse personalities, the archetypal causes for shaping the features of personality, and the ultimate reasons and characteristic for the personality crisis.This thesis consists five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction, including an introduction to Poe; the research background; literature review and the theoretical basis. This chapter points out the feasibility of applying psychological theories to reveal the personality of Poe’s characters. Also in the section of literature review, it traces back to Poe’s study, especially focus on previous Poe’s study by psychological theories and the criticism about the stories which the author will analyze in the following chapters. Chapter two serves as the one of core argument and discussion of this thesis, it intends to evacuate the reason, syndrome, and result for the imbalanced personality through psychoanalytical approach. A comprehensive analysis will be carry out by the specific texts including The Fall of the House of Usher, William Wilson, etc. Chapter three give a comprehensive analysis of the works mainly relied on analytical psychological approach, especially on Jung’s archetypical theory, this chapter tries to seek evidences of two archetypes from the dream and image in the fictions, and to explain the perverse personalities through archetypical theory. The following chapter gives a deep-going analysis from the perspective of existential personality psychology, it points out that loneliness, alienation, and absurdity is the three manifestations of the "lost soul." The last chapter is the conclusion part; it summarizes and points out the significance and weakness of the thesis. The author shows the feasibility of the co-study of personality psychology with Poe’s fictions. More importantly, the author finds out that the characters’ aberrant personality has profound psychological origins which can be traced from the three main study fields of personality psychology.