The Moral in Edgar Allan Poe
Poe’s Philosophy of Composition and the Implied Moral
While Poe claimed that he wrote only for effect, his writing, especially his short stories provide a mirror for the dark heart of mankind.
Many people have argued that Edgar Allan Poe’s writing is morally ambiguous. Even Poe suggests that moralisms are not a consideration when he writes. He begins with the effect he intends to impress upon the reader and methodically works out the entire structure of his writing to produce the desired effect. He focuses on the effect and eliminates everything that doesn’t culminate in the desired effect.
Naturally, if one has studied Poe’s The Philosophy of Composition, it would seem obvious that his writing is simply an exercise in effect and has no consequence. However, to believe that there are no moral conclusions in Poe’s work is to suggest that not only did he live in a moral void but that we too live in a place void of moral considerations. Poe clearly understands the depraved nature of man, a nature that humans use all sorts of civilized conventions to buffer themselves against so that they can forget that they are no better than the serial murderer whose deeds they so avidly read about in the morning paper.
We are hopelessly depraved and unable to free ourselves from our own bondage. Yet we rail against and play games with God trying to deny our own futility. Poe reveals to us our frailty in these enclosed incidents. Poe writes in his essay The Philosophy of Composition that “A close circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident:—it has the force of a frame to a picture.” Poe gives us the key to his stories – unlike traditional stories with motive, plot, moral which move us from an original image of the object of the story to a new image of the object of a story (otherwise known as a moral), Poe’s stories are a photograph. He begins with the obvious details and moves inward to the less obvious details until we find that we have moved behind the photograph into the mind of the subject. Yet we still deal with the same image, it never changes or grows. Yes, there is plot, otherwise we wouldn’t be drawn inexorably forward for deeper and deeper examination of the horror before us but the plot is not motivated by the need to create a turn point in the story and reader—it is there simply to draw us further into the portrait.
His object from beginning to end, it would seem, is to give us an intimate and intricate portrait of depravity or of a lost soul. When discussing composition, Poe uses his poem The Raven as an example of his method. He tells us that his intended effect is beauty with a tone of melancholy. Yet while, theoretically, the poem carries out its mission of beautiful melancholy (as many Goth fans would avidly declare it has), it still unravels sufficiently to show us man’s inability to escape from the self-destruction of his own mind. Poe describes the lover as excited to the point of querying the bird in a “species of despair which delights in self-torture—propounds them not altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird...but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure...” Beauty and melancholy have flown and the story is that of a person enclosed in the despairing and inescapable wishes of his own mind.
At this point, Poe admits to placing before us a teaser. Near the end of the poem, the despairing lover implores the bird to ‘Take thy beak from out my heart.’ Poe points out that this is the first metaphorical expression in the poem and “disposes the mind to seek a moral in all that has been previously narrated.” Poe says that the Raven is emblematical of the ‘Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.’ Perhaps, the effect is more emblematical of the mind enclosed and lost in its own despairing memories – of a mind never able to break through to freedom on its own. We see the photo of a man closeted in his chamber lost in memory and by the end of the poem, we see a man enclosed in a trap that he will never escape on his own.
It is clear that intentionally or unintentionally what Poe repeatedly gives us is a series portraits showing depravity and despair in various forms. Perhaps these portraits are a mirror in which he subconsciously hopes that society will look into and in one of the portraits recognize itself for what it is—depraved and hopeless. Perhaps, once society has viewed itself in Poe’s mirror we will understand that we cannot hide our own lost souls not even behind walls or doors.
For more of Edgar Allan Poe and his writings, read The Cask of Amontillado-Summary.
