1. The Tormented Life of Edgar Allan Poe
The Tormented Life of Edgar Allan Poe
“The Short Life”

2. Poe’s Early Years
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, to English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr.
His father abandoned their family in 1810, and his mother died a year later from tuberculosis.
Poe was then taken into the home of John and Frances Allan.
The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe", though they never formally adopted him.

3. Poe’s Life
Entered and dropped from both the University of Virginia and West Point
In 1835, Poe, then 26, married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. They were married for some eleven years until her early death, which may have inspired some of his writing.
Ran into debt and started borrowing money, gambling and getting deeper into debt.

4. Poe’s Death
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker.
He was taken to the Washington Medical College, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning.
Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own.

6. Wrote in a Gothic Style
Deep and intense
Explorations of а world of dream and of nightmare
In his stories the past is darker, mоrе ominous and oppresses his heroes and heroines
Writing Style of Poe

8. Poe’s Characters
Many of his characters аrе filled with madness
Obsessed with the irrational side of the mind

9. The Fall of the House of Usher Tell-Tale Heart
The Cask of the Amontillado
The Masque of the Red Death
The Raven
Lenore
Famous Works
Short Stories
Poems

10. The Cask of Amontillado

11. Background
The Cask of Amontillado
Published 1846
One theory for the inspiration for story was a feud Poe had with 2 other poets
The story was somewhat controversial for focusing his story on a crime with no apparent motive, and a murderer with no apparent remorse

12. The Cask of Amontillado
Overview
The story is narrated by Montresor, who carries a grudge against Fortunato for an offense that is never explained
Montresor leads a drunken Fortunato through a series of chambers beneath his palazzo

13. The Cask of Amontillado
Overview
Although Fortunato has a horrible cough the promise of a taste of Amontillado spurs him deeper and deeper into the underground
When the two men reach the last underground chamber, where the unbelievable happens.

14. Told in the first person by Montresor
By presenting the story in the first person, Poe puts the reader at the mercy of an unreliable narrator, a mad man, who decides what to tell and what to leave out.
Literary Focus
Point of View

15. Fortunato
Montresor's sworn enemy,
Fortunato displays no uneasiness in Montresor's company, and is unaware that his friend is plotting against him.
Fortunato is a proud taster of fine wine
He is urged on by the chance of sampling some rare Amontillado

16. Luchesi
Acquaintance of Montresor's and Fortunato's
A rival wine expert of Fortunado’s
Montresor keeps Fortunato on the trail of the Amontillado by threatening to allow Luchesi to sample it first

17. Montresor
Holds a grudge against his friend Fortunato, who has committed several unnamed offenses against him
Wealthy and lives in a palazzo
Has planned to murder Fortunato
Telling the story fifty years after it has taken place he reveals no regret for his actions

18. Theme Vengeance conquers even the highest of men
Revenge drives humans to great lengths