n mourning over his lost wife, Lenore. Other critics believe his thoughts on romance are based on the women that were involved in his lifetime. For instances, To Helen 1831, could define the relationship between Poe and his foster mother (Davidson, 32). The eye is a horrific symbol in some of Poe’s stories. Poe’s focus of the cat’s eye in The Black Cat was to show the insanity of the husband. Maybe Poe uses the focus of the eye because the eye is considered to be a window to our soul (Rose). Most of his stories have a continual motive of obsessive-compulsive behavior. For instance, the narrator in the Tell Tale Heart was obsessed with " the beating of the hideous heart!" Or in the Black Cat the character was obsessed with the killing the cat. In both of those stories the narrators was not afraid of the police, yet their presence made the characters lose their insanity. That is a characteristic of someone that is compulsive, and will act without thinking of the consequences. Poe’s characters often recall visions that they see in dreams. Edward Davidson acknowledges, “ Poe sets forth the dream not as a refuge from the world’s chiding, but as the region of understanding and “truth” of which this known world is a mere shadow”(Davidson 11). Poe rarely expresses dreams as the peaceful slumber we desire. The characters may awake from a dream or a nightmare and question if they are awake or dreaming (Rose). For example, the young man in The Pit and the Pendulum was able to visualize and dream of a private psychic world that helped him maintain his stability during his death sentence (Davidson, 134). Poe’s unique writing style is what makes him such a well-known literary author. His personal life is what made his writings so interesting and gruesomely detailed. He never hesi...
