Seven Days of Poe final post: The Raven

It wasn't my plan to write about this particular poem of Poe. Everybody knows The Raven. Even if a person has not actually read The Raven themselves, they know someone who has or have seen a version of it on television.The most popular being the Simpson's version which is narrated by James Earl Jones and is, in all honesty, fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxJHUD9Su2E&feature=related
Or there is this version, as read by the brilliant Vincent Price. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7zR3IDEHrM
Or this version with Christoper Lee.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofSOul1NB8Q

The story is about psychological horror and the devious tricks that the mind will play upon itself.
The unnamed narrator is sitting alone and reading, something he often does to take his mind off Lenore, his lost love. Poe sets everything up so perfectly: a vast and gloomy room, a man deadened by his grief, and the noises that taunt him from the shadows, from the corridors, and from outside. When the raven first flies into the room it is welcomed and is a curiosity. The raven speaks, even if it is only a single word: Nevermore. However, when the melancholy once again falls upon the mind, the narrator's questioning of the raven takes a darker and more desperate turn, and the raven changes into an omen of evil and ill fortune.

"'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil!-prophet still,
if bird or devil!-
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest
tossed thee there ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by Horror haunted-tell me
truly, I implore-
Is there-is there balm in Gilead?-tell me-
tell me, I implore!'
        Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"

Is there a heaven? Is there a hell? Will I ever find peace?
And yet, in the poem as is in real life, there is no answer to be given to the living. He can find no answers for himself and the raven itself can offer nothing. And, like the doubts it represents, it is implied that the raven will stay with the broken man for the rest of his days.

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, 
still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my
chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's
that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws
his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies
floating on the floor
           Shall be lifted-nevermore!"

The Sixth Day of Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart

If there was ever a single story that chilled me it was The Tell-Tale Heart. The name alone invokes a shudder to creep up the spine and palms to sweat. I was young when I first heard it, as it was on a record of  horror stories. I can clearly recall watching the needle slide over the black glossy surface, watching it fall, and the scratching from the speakers that always preludes the start of a record playing.


The premise is of two men sharing lodging. The older man has a single eye that is a deformed vulture-like eye. This unnerving and strange eye so distresses the narrator, the younger gentleman, that he plans to murder his companion in order to free himself from the hideous eye. Anything to rid himself of that horrible eye.
As the story goes on one has to wonder if the man is truly insane or if he is just trying to convince himself, and the reader, that the eye was the only reason for the murder. His planning is meticulous and vengeful, and he takes a sadistic pleasure in the fear he invokes in the older man. Many nights he creeps to the older man's room and looks on him and, on the night of the murder, the younger man plays a game with the older in the dark.
"For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed, listening;-just as I have done, night after night, harkening to the death watches in the wall..."
 The narrator drives the other man mad with the terror of knowing that there is someone, something, waiting in the dark. It is the fear of discovery, the older man's frantically beating heart growing ever louder, that moves him to ending it.
"With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once-once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead."
It is implied that the older man suffocated beneath the heavy mattress and, in order to conceal the event, the body is dismembered and buried beneath the floor. If this is not premeditation, nothing is.
What follows is inevitable. Madness overcomes the mind (if it hadn't already) and revenge is sought, seemingly from beyond the grave. The passion of the crime has faded, but not the pleasure of the event, and when the police come the young man is confident that he is beyond suspicion.
And yet, a heart beats in his ears. It beats in a steady, powerful, unending rhythm.
Guilty, it beats.
Guilty. Guilty.


The story of The Tell-Tale Heart is one of slow building madness, murder, and a free-fall into greater insanity, is intense on its own. The actor's voice getting more and more frantic as the beating heart in the background grows louder and louder, made it one of the most anticipated and, in all honesty, feared stories of the collection.


NOTE: here is a link to a video on YouTube of Vincent Price (who is one of the best actors of ALL TIME) reciting The Tell-Tale Heart. Watch and be chilled by the performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LNjgv5p3Ek
And the second part here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM-tAb-bM-s&feature=relmfu

Thank-you to Mirkodamian for posting it!

Fifth Day of Poe: Masque of the Red Death

There is no escaping death is most likely the lesson Poe intended for The Masque of the Red Death. The other might be the folly of pride.

Prince Prospero has surrounded himself with opulence and beauty. For all of this he is not a good man, and cares little for the responsibilities of his station and seeks only pleasure. His abbey, a fortress, is full of wonders and strange rooms, and the fantastic masquerade that he throws sets the scene for the tale. Beyond its walls a plague that has overcome the world. The Red Death, this sickness is called, as the infected will bleed out through their pores. It is a painful and horrendous lingering death, which Prospero has locked his doors against. After all, he and his friends are not tainted and will be safe within the abbey's walls.

And yet, on some level, they know that they aren't.

There is an ebony clock that, when the hour strikes, echoes loud and discordant even over the revelry. The people still and are uneasy. Then the moment passes and the party continues. And the clock slowly counts down their hours.
And then, when none had noticed him before, their attention is drawn to a tall figure dressed in the garb of the Red Death as he moves through each room. Corpse-like is his mask and blood-red are his robes. "His vesture was dabbled in blood-and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror."
Prospero, both wary and enraged by this, moves to confront the figure and even draws a knife on him when, at a single look into the face, the prince drops dead. The rest throw themselves towards the figure as well and see that they had been vain and foolish.
They had thought to hide from death, but death had come to them.

"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-dewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripod expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

The Masque of the Red Death has always held strong imagery. The vividness the Poe creates, from the descriptions of the prince's abbey to the images of a series of rooms, each different in decor and colour, lead the reader deep into the extravagance. In 1964 the story was made into a movie starring Vincent Price and Jane Asher, and although the storyline was expanded and changed to create for a more dramatic movie (the prince worships Satan and is quite evil) the fundamental elements and message of the original remains.
Rich man or poor man, death comes for us all.

Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death_(film)
Image found at following address. I am receiving no payment and no copyright infringement is intended by use of this image: MasqueOfTheRedDeath(1964film).jpg‎

The Fourth Day of Poe: The Bridal Ballad

The Bridal Ballad has always has always haunted me.

The poem is from a woman's perspective as she is trying to convince herself that she is happy to be married. In true Poe fashion there is more to the story than this. The woman's true love is D'Elormie, who is not the man she is marrying. Her true love is dead and each line of the poem is her trying to convince herself that this is the right thing to do.
If only she could believe it herself.

"And thus the words were spoken,
And this the plighted vow,
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Here is a ring, as token,
That I am happy now!"

In order to go through with the marriage she seems to go into a trance and sees the groom as D'Elormie, only to come to her senses  and feel a chill at the thought of having broken faith with her beloved. Although The Bridal Ballad contains no overt supernatural elements, underneath is a great sense of unease and the words of her being carried to the church-yard are reminiscent of a casket being carried to a funeral service. For this woman they are most likely to her one and the same.

Although Poe dedicates a great deal of his writings to a strong female presence, it is rare to have the narrator actually be that woman.

The reason I identify so strongly with this poem is the version of it that soprano Hayley Westenra performed in the Merchant of Venice film. The harp, the gentle vocals, and the melody turn what could have been a simple mournful poem into a haunting scenario where one is not entirely sure if more is occurring then what is at first evident.



The song can be purchased on itunes from The Merchant of Venice soundtrack as an individual track.

The Third Day of Poe: Bernice

Bernice is a strange short piece of fiction that, while not overwhelming in atmosphere or horror, does tease with hints of premature burial, obsession, madness, and dentistry.

The narrator, Egaeus, is about to marry his cousin, Bernice, who is wasting from an unknown ailment. What is apparent early on is that he has an odd fixation on the morbid and his thoughts are full of visions and fancies which, in most cases, would make him a romantic and soulful person.
In this case, like all of Poe's characters, it does not.

Bernice, once as vibrant as Egaeus is gloomy, has declined and her soon-to-be husband falls ill himself with a malady of the mind; a monomania (a pathological preoccupation) that changes her in his mind from a living creature into something that is both more and less. In a scene where she comes to speak with him her appearance is described as nearly corpse-like, and yet when she smiles, he is captivated by her teeth.
"Would to God that I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had died!"


It should be humorous, the idea of a person so obsessed with another's teeth. t isn't. Egaeus agonizes and each written thought leads the reader to the conclusion that he is, or soon will be, insane. Even the  death of Bernice does little to rouse him. It is not until after she has be entombed that he suffers from a blackout and, upon awakening in the study, is filled with an overwhelming horror. Before him on the desk is a box that, until that moment, had never held his attention with the same weight.

What, he wonders, is in that box that so terrifies him?

When an attendant comes with the news that Bernice's grave has been violated and her still living body mutilated. At this point there is no need for Poe to point out he muddied and bloody clothes, nor to the spade by the wall, or even the box's contents.

The reader already knows what is in that box.

The Second Day of Poe: The Cask of Amontillado

Perhaps the second most featured theme of Poe's writing was that of revenge. Many of the stories featured one person or another extracting some form of horror on their victim for a real or imagined slight.

In the situation described in The Cask of Amontillado the victim Fortunato has wronged Montresor (the narrator) in some unknown way. In obvious premeditation Montresor lures his drunk and unwary victim into the depths of his home under the guise of having a very rare wine, and every word and act leads the unfortunate further into the trap set for him. Perhaps, as the reader, one is meant to think that the man deserves it; after all, we are not aware of what ills he has done and Fortunato comes across as a brash and arrogant man. And yet, the resolute nature of Montresor's rage is clearly beyond limit.

"At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled-but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity."

This is not a well-deserved vengeance; this is divine judgment. And so it goes on, the one man leading the other on, until Fortunato enters a hollowed-out space in the Montresor crypts and once inside...

Poe rarely used bloody or overly violent acts, preferring to play on the psychological horrors that only the mind (and human experience) can conjure. In reading this short story, the reader has to wonder at how truly sinister it is that this terrible deed is being done during Carnival, where celebration and joy are at their height.  Even at the end the presence of sinister revelry remains, with the victim begging for this to all be a jest and the perpetrator gleefully taunting the man as he is entombed alive.

And, even worse, poor Fortunato won't be missed until far too late.

In pace requiescat!

The First Day of Poe: Lenore

I have chosen Lenore to start this list as it functions as a perfect introductory piece. It is one of the shorter works, consisting of several small sections, dealing with the narrator's lamentations on the death of his beloved. The anger and despair is realistically portrayed, which most likely could have mirrored events that had happened or were happening in Poe's own life. And what is expected of society in terms of death and funeral services is brought into question and critique:

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

"And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her - that she died!

"How shall the ritual, then, be read? - the requiem how be song

"By you - by yours, the evil eye, - by yours, the slanderous tongue

"That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?" 

The reader can just see the fake polite smiles on faces while, as a person turns their head, the satisfied gleam in their eyes becomes evident. As is the disgust of the narrator. And the plea in the final lines, "Let no bell toll!" is a poignant plea that, for any person who has been forced to say farewell to one that they have loved, will understand all too well.

The second reason that this poem is included on the list is for the title. The subject of this poem, Lenore, was also the name of the tragically lost love in Poe's The Raven, and so it felt right to include this as the first showcased work.

Seven days of Poe

In celebration of The Raven, the new film based on (and featuring) Edgar Allen Poe, I will posting a short article on a different work of his on the days counting down to the movie's release.

Poe's life was one of tragedy and this was a strong influence on the subject matter of his writings. A sense of desire and despair hovers over the pages and, as the story winds down to what is often a tragic resolution, what is revealed is the ache that lingers within the human heart.
Not all of his works involve some form of lost love. Mystery, or course plays its part, as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is strong detective fiction. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a fantastical tale of mental degradation and horror.
And yet it is revenge that takes the leading role, more often than not. There is often a sense of a person getting what is deserved, in most cases not as deserved as the perpetrator seems to believe. "The Cask of Amontillado" illustrates this idea most profoundly.

Which of Poe's tales will be used in the movie's plot remains to be seen (though the chosen title is a large hint of what is to come, and those who know Poe have an idea what horrors the writers have chosen) so, in the following posts, I will touch on some of his less known works.


Link to movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeLrtwniqM4

NOTE: I have something similar planned for the release of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. I am counting the hours!

Fashion Week Internationale

When I first viewed Fashion Week Internationale I was struck at how, even as it tore through society's conventions on what beauty and fashion is, it also praised them as well. There was a celebration for the people involved, be they from Cambodia or Islamabad, even as facets of the everyday life lived in the areas resounds with the tragic. Perhaps the greatest message it declares is that there is beauty to be found in everything, even through the horror.

At only six episodes (Nigeria, Columbia, Cambodia, Islamabad, Las Vegas International Lingerie and Full Figured Fashion week) it is too short to handle all of the issues that it unearths. Yet, unlike other fashion documentaries, it at least touches upon them.

The series can be found at Vice.com and, whether you view it for the social concerns or for the love of fashion, it is something that should be watched.

Link: http://www.vice.com/fashion-week-internationale

To begin again and a copyright reminder

Welcome! What was once old is now made new, and hopefully it will span a new future to move towards as well.

As mentioned above, but will repeated once more, this is a blog that will have many features, ranging from item and product testing (mostly when I buy and try out something new) to reviews and critiques of past and present literature, film, and music. My personal tastes vary and so shall the posts.

It must be stated before I begin that I am receiving no pay for this and will only own personal pieces that will labeled as such; everything else is owned by that particular company's copyright. Links, when possible, will be provided to the accurate sites.

Every thought and opinion, however, comes from my own mind.