What to Look for In Poe

1. What to Look for In Poe • Poe uses many recurring motifs in his writings. As you read his works, always look for motifs that repeat or recur throughout his stories and poems. Motif: a recurring theme, idea, concept, subject or topic

2. The Eye Motif • one of the most common motifs • considered a window to the soul • sometimes referred to as an “orb”

3. The Heart Motif • important as both the physical pump of the body and as the center of all feeling and experience • Poe places far greater emphasis on the Heart, representing emotion and experience, than on the head, representing intellect, rational thought, and scientific reasoning.

4. Premature Burial & Suffocation Motif • These two concepts are sometimes linked, as a kind of “Life-in-Death” theme

5. The Un-named Narrator Motif • Each narrator is different, distinct from any other from one story to the next. • Some of Poe’s narrators are sane, some are clearly not and others are somewhere in between. • The reader is not meant to see the narrator as Poe himself, but rather as a separate character or “persona”. • The reader rarely if ever identifies with the narrator.

6. Vortex: A mass of whirling fluid or air, esp. a whirlpool or whirlwind. Figuratively it is something regarded as a whirling mass : the vortex of existence. The Vortex Motif • Poe will use the image and action of the vortex in his stories. • Whether a character is traveling down a circular stairway, deep into the catacombs, or being swallowed up by an angry swirling sea the vortex motif is evident.

7. The Dreams/Dreaming Motif • Related to the Vortex; • Psychologically, dreams are a porthole to the inner workings of the mind, a kind of “creative insanity”.