Poe explored concepts of the mind before the discipline of psychology began theorizing and testing them. Use the psychological critical approach to analyze one of Poe’s stories we read for this week. Remember, the psychological approach is going to look for references to the conscious and subconscious or Freudian terms like the Id and Superego. You may also think about what a story is saying about the mind and how the story constructs that point.
As you read the three works selected for this week, consider how Poe uses spaces as both setting and symbol. Poes works typically avoid the natural world (which is often dark and imposing) and prefers internal spaces. In “The Raven” the chamber becomes a kind of internal world with the imposition of an external force. Notice, how what the Raven says has not intrinsic meaning. The speaker is on a pursuit to give meaning to this random occurrence (similar in this regard to “Bartleby the Scrivener”). And as he does, he moves through the Raven representing three distinct states of the afterlife. At first the speaker hopes the bird is an Angel (Heaven) then switches to a Demon (Hell) but in the end we are left with the speaker stuck in limbo, a state of utter unknowing (Purgatory).
In “The Fall of the House of Usher” consider the narrator compares the house to a human face and thus the spaces of the mind become a comparative tool to understand the story.
Lastly, in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe blurs the line between sanity and insanity. Notice the narrator details his fixation and method to murder. He cannot be dismissed as completely crazy. However, his behavior and fixation suggest an errant way of thinking. Poe seems to suggest that this could happen to any of us. Perhaps, there is a kind of madman within us all. Keep in mind Poe predates the discipline of psychology. Freud would come decades after Poe’s death.
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