The Interpretation Of Female Images And Patriarchal Consciousness In Edgar Allan Poe’s Works

This thesis attempts to analyse Edgar Allan Poe’s works from the perspective ofFeminist Criticism in order to probe into Poe’s patriarchal consciousness and thegender identity Poe represents. The thesis compares the images of men with those ofwomen portrayed in different periods of Poe’s poetic creations, for an overview ofPoe’s gender construction and the socio-political awareness as revealed in hiswriting.The thesis, based on the analysis of the male and female images in Poe’s differentperiods of poetic creation, reaches the conclusion that Poe is a writer with a strongpatriarchal consciousness. In fact, Poe’s portrayal of men is a process of theconstruction of a male self in a head–on way, while his portrayal of women as theother is to construct a male self in a reverse way, enabling Poe to enjoy hispatriarchal power. By means of the portrayal of the death of beauty and antientheroes, Poe’s depressed self has been released. It is in his poetic world that Poe couldbe “the Man.”...