Edgar Allan Poe Psychological Allegories Essay

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Poe’s Psychological Allegories “There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion” (Goodreads.com). This quote by Edgar Allan Poe might just explain how and why he writes what he does. Lemco writes, “the American author subscribed to a different, darker vision of human nature, a concession to the irrational in humanity” (n.p.). This vision of the human nature can definitely be seen in his short stories, and this vision can help lead to psychological allegories. A psychological allegory is defined as, “characters represent aspects of the human mind” (“How to Write”). Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Masque of the Red Death” are excellent examples of psychological allegory …show more content…
(n.p.)
The house’s pieces are falling apart, but the overall structure is still sound. Carlson describes the characters as, “The narrator functions as an observer-interpreter, as a voice for the meaning of it all, the only ‘central intelligence’ in the story. Roderick Usher is the creative mind in the hypnagogic or visionary state, now suffering from a psychic conflict caused by the repression of his Moral Sense” (n.p). The psychological allegory in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is mostly distinguished by the house. The house itself can be compared to the unconscious, while its central crack is compared to a split personality. The house and its characteristics are the main psychological allegories in this story, but there are a few others. I will discuss only the house allegories. The first comparison is the crack and how it is compared to a split personality in a person.
This is because one side can be related to irrationality, while the other side is related
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