orture. "My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.", he wrote in The Black Cat.Poe's tales often emphasized the fear of death and engulfment by nothingness. Usually they took place at midnight or in the middle of a bad thunderstorm. Rotting corpses were a favorite of his tales, and distinct detail was given to their stench and look. In his story, The Facts of M. Valdemar's Case, it says, "his whole frame at once - within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk - crumbled - absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome - of detestable putrescence."The question arises whether Poe's various life problems had anything to do with his stories. It is probable that they had a profound effect on all of his writings. For instance, some of the characters in his stories used or were addicted to drugs and alcohol, just as Poe is believed to have been. Many characters were tortured and abused, as was Poe as a child. The fascination with corpses in his tales could have stemmed from Poe's alleged necrophilia. The stories he wrote seemed to actually be veiled confessions of his various problems. All of these problems had been building up in his mind, to the point where he had to release them into his stories and poemsThe people that were tortured in his stories could have been reflective of actual people in Poe's life. "I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my ownI suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.", he wrote in his story, The Black ...
