Throughout the centuries we individuals have been reading about famous writers in history. The truth is where and how do these writers come up with their work. People wonder if it has to do with past experiences or just things they have heard about. In this paper I will explain how a writer’s background influences their writing material; specifically I will talk about Edgar Allen Poe. Poe seemed to be a very weird and unusual man, but was brilliant with his short stories. His stories were written in different genres and had a connection to events that occurred in his life. Poe was born in Boston, Mass, who authored more than 100 poems and short stories during his lifetime. He is most remembered for his skillful use of gruesome and horrifying chilling tone and emphasis. Edgar’s writing seems to resemble an allegorical dance with death. Poe didn’t always write with this dark force, he once loved writing poems for the loves of his life. Unfortunately, the life of Edgar Allan Poe was filled with tragedies that all influenced his craft to change its personality. Edgar’s whole life affected how he thought and wrote throughout his lifetime. After his mother passed away, he was left orphaning with his father. After losing money from a gambling problem, he then enlisted in the United States army. It was then that he published his first book, Tamberlane and Other Poems. After Poe was married to his thirteen year old cousin, he wrote much of his best work, “The Fall of the House of Usher” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Gold Bug.’ While other writers of the time were writing straight forward realistic representations of life in America, Poe was concerning himself with the subconscious-dreams, nightmares, and the unspoken. His work plumbed the depths of human fears and desires, often allowing the reality of the stories to fade away and make room for a reality only found within the mind. Unfortunately, Poe’s interest in the unspoken and psychological left him unable to sell his work. Poe’s short stories examine horror and evil, both as a palpable external force, and a malevolent cancer in the human heart. Most of his writing career was influenced by the past deaths of his loved ones that he continued to experience. “The Raven”, Poe’s, masterpiece, illustrates this idea of cancer in the human heart perfectly. It tells a chilling tale of a man haunted by deaths, such as him, past and future. Other poems convey the theme of loss and lamentation. After his realization of the harsh realities of life, his writing became darker and more disturbing, due to his excessive experimentation with opium and alcohol. Many historians and literature fanatics have suspected his unstable love life as the source while others have attributed it to his substance abuse. Poe was so afraid of the dead or dying that he panicked whenever he passed a cemetery, believing that ghosts and bodies would come after him. His mother’s death by the disease of tuberculosis would be the common source of death in others who would matter much in Edgar’s life. There is a direct correlation between each death of his loved ones and the gradual darkening of the stories he wrote. Poe’s brother had died of tuberculosis, which hit Poe hard. After mourning for his brother he wrote two works, Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher. These pieces were a musical type of poetry that would produce a certain effect in the readers; touching their hearts and allowing them to recognize their sorrows. Soon after the Raven was written which was a sorrowful never-ending remembrances, written as a result of perpetual reflection
