The Concept Of Death And Immortality English Literature Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

This review examines the concept of death and immortality in two of Edgar Allan Poe's collection of short stories: "Legeia" and "Morella". These two stories portray the same theme of mortal love beyond the grave, along with immortality through metempsychosis, known as the transmigration of soul. Poe's work in "Legeia" and "Morella" is unique as the author applied the first person narrative which enables readers to understand the characters and explore Poe's world, privy to his personal thoughts and feelings.

Poe's personal experiences have majorly influenced the reanimated characters present in the short stories selected. The theme of death and reanimation are clearly projected in "Legeia" and "Morella", as Bonaparte once wrote about how "works of art or literature profoundly reveal their creator's psychology..". In these short stories, Poe also used elements in Gothic literature and terror to bring readers towards the realm of supernatural horror, followed by the realm of mental horror, allowing readers to understand in a psychological way of what Poe is trying to convey through his writing.

This section serves as a guideline to the researcher for further writing, at the same time enables the researcher to focus on specific themes mentioned earlier in this chapter. With the use of this preface, readers would be able to grasp on the general view of the researcher's study as well as his reasons behind this research.

The psychoanalysis approach will be used in discussing and analyzing the two selected short stories. This approach allows us to interpret individual characters in the given texts with certain depth. In both "Legeia" and "Morella", Poe focused on Oedipus situations that later on accentuate on death and immortality through metempsychosis. In this research, we will focus on the Oedipus complex, known as the subconscious sexual desire of a boy towards his mother and competes with his father for an exclusive maternal attention. Below are the step by step analyses according to the psychoanalysis approach used in analyzing the two selected short stories.

The different literary devices used in the text are analyzed and determined whether if these aid in the aspect of characterization. For example, do certain descriptions of images or the use of any particular colors in relation to the characters reveal more insights into the character?