se of Usher”. The women in Poe’s life also seem to “abandon” him. Each of the women that Poe was closed to died, usually of tuberculosis. This wrecked havoc on Poe’s emotional state and pushed him to the brink of the “twisted kingdom,” or insanity. The death’s influenced his writing, which is seen in nearly every poem or short story. His writings are usually grotesque and have an obsession with death. In many cases, the deaths in his stories have obscure circumstances surrounding them. Poe’s chronic alcohol abuse is also reflected in his writings, but not as one would think. Many people think that Poe’s hallucinations and deranged thinking lead to some of his best works. If the reader takes a good look at his writings, he can see that it’s the alcoholism itself that is represented. The descriptions drunken men in “The Man of the Crowd” come to show Poe as he saw himself. They staggered and stumbled to the gin houses “in shreds and patches, reeling, inarticulate, with bruised visage and lack-luster eyes” (Poe 477). Poe is describing himself as he looks whenever he is commonly drug out of the gutters. In “Black Cat”, the main character is an alcoholic who exclaims “for what disease is like Alcohol” (Poe 224). In a drunken stupor, the man gouges out the cat’s eye because he thought it was avoiding him. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Fortunato is lured to his death by the drug. Poe rarely uses alcohol in anything positive. The drug is usually used in association to destruction and anger. He retaliates against the drug and attacks it in his writings. His characters show his inability to enjoy the drug and his seeing it as an instrument of destruction.Poe died in 1849, but his memory did not die with him. His life influences influenced his writings which, in turn, influenced the lives of others...
