The Death Theme In The Novels Of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe(1809——1849), a wizard writer in the 20 th century American literature, was well known for his mystery and horror stories. He has an extremely deep even morbid fascination with the description of death for his ill-fated life. All of his characters are clad in the shadow of death, be in danger or gravely ill. Based on the study of Allan Poe's short stories, this paper will research into the forms of death theme mainly through the analysis of the characters in his novels. Take time as clues to study the nuance between the death he has described in different times,and then based on text analyzing trying to unearth the deep structure that lie below the surface structure, to find its meaning to the construction of the death theme.This essay has three chapters. In the first part, take “the Black Cat”, “William Wilson” and “the Oval Portrait” as example, focus on those leading characters that finally died,and analyze the reasons that causes their death:murder,suicide and ill. Then,by text analyzing, find that the basic reason is the loss of sense, moral and love respectively,and to study how did them play a role. In the second part, take “A Descent into the Maelstrom” and “Ligeia” as example, focus on the other kind of leading character that even they faced death they survived, and to study how did sense and will play a key role when they are escaping from death. Finally, hold forth that such an idea that Allan Poe has a complicated and changeable view on death, and from literary tradition, knowledge and personal record to make an across-the-abroad unscramble on his view on death.