Edgar Allan Poe

In every story from the mind of Edgar Allan Poe, a bit of his own life had been molded into each piece of his work. This left his readers and critics with a better understanding of Poe’s life. Poe displayed his greatest life’s achievements and his worst disappointments in a series of stories and poems created throughout his whole life. It is the goal of this research paper to reveal symbolic facts about Poe’s life and define these hidden parallels in some of his most famous works.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 001809 in Boston, Massachusetts (“Poe, Edgar Allan,” Encyclopedia Britannica 540). Poe’s parents were David Poe, an actor from Baltimore and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, an actress born in England, who had relocated to Baltimore. At birth, Poe had been cursed. Shortly afterwards, Poe’s father abandoned the family and left Poe and his mother to fend for themselves. Not long after that, the cruel hands of fate worked their horrible touch on Poe again by taking his mother. In 1811, when Poe was two, his mother passed away, leaving him with a great loss. After his father’s departure and mother’s sudden death, Poe was left in the hands of his godfather, John Allan. John Allan was a wealthy merchant based in Richmond, Virginia with the means, knowledge and money to provide a good life for Poe.

In 1815, Poe and his new family moved to England to provide him a classical education. Upon returning from England in 1826, Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia. This was a magnificent achievement for him, because Poe was only seventeen at the time while the normal age for attendance was nineteen (Quinn 130). For the first time, life was going good for Poe. His future looked to be a path paved with gold. When Poe entered college, his path of gold ended quickly. It was only another path of grief and disappointment. Poe soon began to gamble and drink alcohol quite heavily. He developed gambling debts from 2,000 to 2,500 dollars, which caused problems between his godfather and himself (Quinn 130). After eleven months at the university, Poe dropped out mainly because of his debts and drinking, but also for John Allan’s refusal to pay for his habits (“Poe, Edgar Allan,” Encyclopedia Britannica 540).

Soon after Poe dropped out of school, he and John Allan had many quarrels over his gambling addiction. They finally decided it would be best for him to join the army. He joined under the alias of “Edgar Allan Perry” (“Poe, Edgar Allan,” Encyclopedia Britannica 540). In 1829, Poe was honorably discharged, but not before attaining the rank of Sergeant Major. A year later, John Allan scheduled an appointment for Poe with the West Point U.S. Military Academy. Poe had not been in the academy for a year when he was dismissed