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Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne

Among American literati, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are considered well-versed in the use of psychology and the development of their characters, even the settings created for the characters to live through. While Poe is a master at the use of abnormal psychology and the darker side of the human experience, Hawthorne masterfully marks his fiction by haunting symbolism, and his exploration of guilt, sin and other complex moral and psychological issues. While it is hard to pit one against the other as being 'better' at the use of psychology, the works of Poe are often considered more psychologically influenced by his use of first person narrative, allowing the reader to sense more readily on all levels what is happening within the story.

Poe illustrates his deep interest in the psychological by first setting his into a mournful melancholy. He is determined to show the reader that what happens within the mind is just as real as what is happening to the body. By exploring in depth the mental and emotional states of his characters, he seeks to produce within the reader a similar mind set. The narrators are often giving us one-sided versions of stories (theirs) as we see the events taking place through their eyes. The story or poem could be considered to confuse between physical and psychological reality as we see the narrators visions and live through their versions of reality.

For instance, in "The Cask of Amontillado," Poe masterfully contrasts the story between the narrator's passionately angry need for revenge, his over-the-top impeccable manners with guest Fortunado and Fortunado's ignorance of what is about to happen to him. Poe pits the narrator's devious cleverness beside Fortunado's petty denseness. We are also privy to knowing that the narrator is revealing this crime long after the fact. This makes the ending appear all the more horrific because it has been so perfectly calculated from the very beginnin...

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Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:25, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1706357.html