Reflections on Poe 11/3/14

     Before I did read about Poe's life and his stories, I knew nothing about him. In the beginning of the year, I just knew his name but I had no idea who he was. Now I know a lot more about him. Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic. He loved to write and he mostly wrote mystery short stories.

   
     Poe went through a lot of difficult tragedies throughout his life. One of the major (bad) things in his life was when he lost his wife, mother, brother, and foster mother all from tuberculosis. Also, he had a very hard time being poor for a long time so he even had to burn his furniture to keep warm. Another bad thing that happened was when he left college to come home only to find that his fiancé cheated on him.

     While working for The Messenger, he was dissatisfied with the low pay and lack of editorial control. So, he decided to move to Pennsylvania; he spent his time wiring for different magazines. Poe always wanted to become famous for is writing; and that came true. The January 1845 publication of his short story "The Raven" made Poe a household name. He was now famous enough to draw large crowds to his lectures, and he was beginning to demand better pay for his work. 

      His life may have affected his writing a lot. I think that when he wrote, he based some of the character's emotions on what he was feeling and expressed it in his stories. Since he suffered a lot of tragedies, he probably made one character insane because of all of the emotions and things going on that would be enough to drive someone mad. 

     Life in the 1800's compared to the 2000's was very different. Back then, people didn't have advanced and modern things; they also didn't have much ideas on how to create a cure for diseases. That's probably why a lot of Poe's family died of tuberculosis. Also, not everybody had a job (that they get paid for); now, most people can at least work somewhere like McDonalds, but still get money enough to buy things that they need. Poe even had to make a fire with his furniture to keep warm so that shows how different life was then and now.

     There are still some similarities between both the 19th and 21st century. One thing that they both have in common is that there are still the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor. Edgar Allan Poe was first the poor, then when he got famous, he was wealthy. You can still go from poor to wealthy, then back. Lastly, in both times, there are famous writers/authors. There are still a lot of famous authors today.