Edgar Allan Poes Beliefs About the Afterlife free essay sample

What exactly is Poe trying to tell us about the afterlife? Is he saying one even exists? And if so, what are his thoughts about Heaven and Hell? Speculations could be made about Poe’s beliefs in the afterlife due to much of his stories implying the existence of an afterlife or at least the thought of an afterlife. There have also been books written solely as psycho-analytic interpretations of his work which delve deeper into his thought processes as he wrote these tales. It’s tempting to think that Poe believed in an afterlife as well as a Heaven and a Hell with only the text from his own tales as evidence, but there is also the possibility that in his whole life he still had no clear understanding of an afterlife or Heaven nor Hell, and he included the afterlife in a select number of his tales merely as a way of coping with the loss of his own loved ones. While there is no definite way of knowing whether he believed in an afterlife or not since it’s impossible to ask Poe himself, what we can do is take a closer look into a select number of his stories and some works of other scholars as well, and we can come to a strongly supported theory that comes pretty close. Annabel Lee is a short, yet fascinating poem about young love and a love lost. In Annabel Lee, the narrator describes a love that he and the young maiden Annabel Lee have for each other as so great the angels in heaven blow a cold wind out of a cloud that makes Annabel Lee sick and eventually kills her. But their love is so great that no one on earth, heaven, or hell can separate their souls from each other, not even death. The use of an afterlife in this piece is obvious since the angels in heaven were the ones who took the narrator’s loved ones away from him. â€Å"Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, Sanchez 2 In this Kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. † One could also argue that this poem was written as Poe’s personal way of coping with the loss of his wife Virginia Clemm. Poe is known for integrating his real-life experiences into most of his works, so Annabel Lee and the narrator symbolizing the relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Clemm even after death is a definite possibility. Spirits of the Dead is another short poem about a conversation between the spirit of a dead man and another man visiting his tombstone. In Spirits of the Dead, the soul of the dead man basically tells the man visiting him that the people you know in life, you will know in death as well. No clear afterlife statement is given in this piece but it strongly implies that you will reunite with all of your loved ones in death, possibly an afterlife. â€Å"Thy soul shall find itself alone ‘Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness, for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee, and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. † Once again, the argument could be made that the spirit in Spirits of the Dead could symbolize Poe’s own consciousness. If this were the case (which is definitely possible), then this story could have been written as Poe’s own way of comforting himself with the death of his wife and all other people he lost in his lifetime. Also, if this were the case, the existence of an afterlife is definitely implied since all spirits separated from their bodies would have to exist somewhere or someplace. The Colloquy of Monos and Una is a strange tale in that the afterlife is present for the whole duration of the story. Monos had dies and left his lover Una behind yet feels her presence at times. It’s also weird and important to note that Monos was glad he had died during the story. Towards the end of the story, Una dies and joins Monos in this afterlife and once she does, Monos is extremely happy and Sanchez 3 feels her presence stronger than ever and they are able to stay with each other forever. E. Arthur Robinson states, â€Å"In Monos’ account of dying and passing into eternity, he prefaces his final acuteness as ‘though eccentrically so†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The entire story takes place inside the afterlife which I can only assume is Purgatory or something similar. The afterlife that Monos and Una inhabit has no clear signs of being a heaven or a hell, just a lone realm that only the two of them dwell in. â€Å"The sense of being had at length utterly departed, and there reigned in its steadinstead of all thingsdominant and perpetualthe autocrats Place and Time. For that which was notfor that which had no formfor that which had no thoughtfor that which had no sentiencefor that which was soulless, yet of which matter formed no portionfor all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates. In The Colloquy of Monos and Una, the same argument could be made, but it would be from a different standpoint. It’s still very possible that Poe is in mourning over his losses but this story places him in a greater position of denial. If Poe is in fact relating his own life experiences to the events that transpired in The Colloquy of Monos and Una, then it would be only natural to assume th at he desperately wants to feel their presence again and might be fooling himself into thinking he does. On the other hand, Poe might have more faith in the afterlife after writing this piece. If not more faith in the afterlife than he either has more faith in rekindling with his lost loves after death or is putting himself further in denial. Mesmeric Revelation takes a different standpoint of the afterlife than any other story he has written. In this story, instead of writing a tale about someone who has died and offering a subtle message that death isn’t always the end, Poe writes a tale about a patient that is mesmerized and discusses the issue of the afterlife, God, heaven and hell from a scientific and intellectual standpoint. As Sanchez 4 E. Arthur Robinson writes, â€Å"Mesmeric Revelation contains speculations about the relation between sensory experience and eternity. † The patient in the story describes God as something that exists but is neither spirit nor matter. He describes God as a sort of universal mind that everyone shares. â€Å"He is not spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter, as you understand it. But there are gradations of matter of which man knows nothing; the grosser impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while the electric principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a matter unparticledwithout particlesindivisibleone; and here the law of impulsion is modified. The ultimate or unparticled matter not only permeated al things, but impels all things; and thus is all things itself. This matter is God. † In the very end, the patient finally comes to but dies immediately after. The narrator takes a closer look at the body and discovers that the body is already stricken with Rigor Mortis and already cold which only happens to a corpse after it has been deceased for quite a while, leaving the narrator to contemplate whether or not the patient was speaking to him as a spirit the entire time. Poe’s views and beliefs about God and the afterlife vary considerably in this piece. According to the story, God can only be defined as an unparticled matter that impels all things and later refers to God as a sort of divine mind that encompasses all of man. Later the patient goes on to state that life and death can be thought of as the worm and the butterfly, and that death in simply the metamorphosis from the â€Å"rudimentary† body into the â€Å"complete† body. This supports Poe’s other claims about the afterlife, but for the first time gives us a glimpse into his views about a God, although he tends to be pretty ambiguous in his description of him. Edgar Allan Poe displays a great deal of evidence from his stories that implies his belief in the afterlife. It’s very possible that Edgar Allan Poe did in fact believe in the afterlife and a Heaven and Hell Sanchez 5 n his lifetime, but I think for the most part he only integrated an afterlife in his stories merely as a way of coping with the loss of his loved ones over the years. Writing is a powerful emotional outlet, and one could make an infinite number of arguments for all of the ways Poe intertwined his real-life experiences into his works of fiction. In a way you could say Poe never really got closure over the loved ones he lost over the years and his stories were his main coping mechanism for dealing with the losses. In Annabel Lee, for example, the narrator’s wife was killed by the angels in heaven due to nothing other than jealousy. When Poe wrote this piece it’s very possible that he was writing about the loss of Virginia Clemm who died of Tuberculosis. I don’t think Poe actually believed that the angels in heaven took her away from him, I just think that he wanted to put in words that nothing could separate the love they shared for each other. Another poem to be taken into consideration would have to be Spirits of the Dead. Spirits of the Dead is a short poem about a brief conversation between the spirit of a dead man and someone visiting his grave. In this poem, the soul tells the man visiting him that people you know in life will know you in death as well. This could very well be Poe’s way of consoling himself in another piece of his writing. This may be going out on a limb here but it seems as if Poe is assuring himself that the dead are not gone forever, and once you become dead then you will rejoin your loved ones who died before you. In The Colloquy of Monos and Una, Monos was dead yet he would still feel Una’s presence. Una, who was Monos’s lover when they were both alive, dies towards the end of the story and is in a state of bliss because now they can be together the entire time. Once again, the argument could be made that Poe is coping with death through his writing. Monos and Una symbolize Poe’s relationship with Virginia. The only exception is that Monos died first and not Poe, but the message remains the same. Poe probably wanted to feel Virginia’s presence here on earth and wanted to believe that they would be Sanchez 6 together forever after death. I think most people can relate to Poe at length because when a person loses someone they love it’s only natural to want to find closure and know they are in a better place or at least at peace. Mesmeric Revelation, however, is just as the title says. Poe is breaking the fourth wall in a way and informing the reader about the concept of life and death from a scientific point of view. This is the only time Poe gives us a detailed explanation of what he believes God is, even though his description is pretty vague. Poe stays pretty true to his views about the afterlife but throws his audience a curveball in his description of God. I think Poe believes his description of God and saw this story as a means of expressing his views to his readers in a somewhat subtle way. He fails to mention however, in this story and the other stories I’ve presented here, any real thought about Heaven or Hell. When he refers to the afterlife he usually refers to it as a singular place, not divided into different segments such as Heaven and Hell. So what exactly is Poe trying to tell us about the afterlife? He’s expressing his thoughts and hopes about the afterlife through his stories. Poe is more of a believer in spirits than anything. I think Poe is obliged to believe in an afterlife if he wants to believe the spirits of his loved ones are still present. That being said, I think it would be a bit of a risk to assume Poe believes in a Heaven as well as a Hell. I think Poe for the most part just wants to believe that his loved ones are still with him. As I said, it’s impossible of knowing for sure what his real beliefs are since we can’t call him and ask him, only he knows. And right now, only he knows for sure if an afterlife does in fact exist or not.