How Poe’s Perception of Death as Revealed in The Mask of the Red

30 that killed his mother, his foster mother and his elder brother earlier. When he created The Mask of the Red Death, he created a horrible disease which was similar with tuberculosis called the Red Death plague. The story which tells the useless effort of Price Prospero to stop and avoid the death to come is reflected by Poe’s own action and attempts to make Virginia better. Edgar Allan Poe would do anything to make Virginia recovered. However it was nonsense, the health of Virginia was getting worse day by day. He tried to ignore the fatality of the disease just like Prince Prospero does Kenneth 108. Virginia died on January 30, 1847 at the age of 24. This really shocked Edgar and this was the greatest tragedy in his life. He lost a person he loved more than everything; a lovely person who was always there to accompany him during the suffering time and to hope for a better future with her great faith and love Porges 95-128. Married to Virginia gave Poe more spirit and inspiration. He stopped drinking and started creating several works. Some of them were inspired by his lovely cousin yet wife, Virginia. Works such as Berenice, Elenora, and Ligeia were completely inspired by Virginia, the characteristics, the life, and the death 95. In Ligeia, Poe created a character of a lady who was much likely as his dear Virginia. The beauty of Ligeia makes the narrator becomes obsessed to her and afraid of losing her. This fact is based on Poe’s feeling about his dear Virginia. However, in the story both Ligeia and Rowena die, although at the end of the story, it shows that somehow Ligeia revives from her death. The sorrow and horrible feeling about the death of beautiful woman becomes powerful theme in this story and Poe knows it very well. This perception of death can be a reflection 31 from Poe’s lost of Mrs. Stannard when he was young, as at that time he adored Mrs. Stannard so much and felt terribly sorrowful when she died. It was when he was the age of 15, as taken from Edgar Allan Poe by Porges, he felt the first purely first love of his soul to Mrs. Stanard, one of his friends’ mother. When finally Mrs. Stanard died on April 28, 1824, young Poe was drowning to deep sorrow. He lost his closest friend who gave him encouragement he needed badly 25-26. The narrator’s fear to his beloved’s death in Poe’s real life can reflect his fear to the death of people he loves. Since he had lost Mrs. Stannard, Mrs. Allan and other people he loved, he was afraid of losing anybody else, especially at that moment his lovely wife, Virginia. So, in Ligeia, Poe created the story that somehow the great love of the narrator revives the dead Ligeia through the body of Rowena. As quoted from sparknotes.com: “The loving memory of a grieving husband revives a dead wife. “Ligeia” breaks down the barrier between life and death, but not just to scare the reader. Instead, the memory of the dead shows the power of love to resist even the permanence of death” “Ligeia”. Due to the bad health of Virginia, Poe, Virginia, and his aunt moved to a farmhouse owned by Patrick Brennan Porges123. It does not mean that Poe stopped writing there. With his brilliant mind concerning death, Poe created another story about death, this time the major theme was about revenge titled The Cask of Amontillado. The theme of the story, revenge, can be drawn from Poe’s intention to take revenge to his foster father, Mr. John Allan although at the time he wrote this story, Mr. John Allan had already passed away. It is supported by Silverman as re- 32 quoted from Martha Womack’s essay Edgar Allan Poe’s: The Cask of Amontillado: “Montresor tries to convince the reader that his intentions are honorable in an effort to uphold his family motto. Nemo me impune lacessit is also the national motto of Scotland. Kenneth Silverman, in his book Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance, makes reference to the fact that it is not an accident or similarity that Poe chooses this particular motto. It is one that would remind Poe of another Scotsman, John Allan, his foster father. Allan, much resembled Fortunato in being a man rich, respected, admired, beloved, interested in wines, and a member of the Masons. Silverman continues by saying, that even the Allan name can be seen as an anagram in Amontillado Silverman 317. The relation between Poe and his foster father was never been good. During the sad period when Poe did not have anything which forced him to ask money to his foster father until the last period of Mr. John Allan’s life, they had bad relationship. When Mr. John Allan’s health was failing gradually, Poe decided to make a visit to him. However, Mr. John Allan kicked him out from the house and asked him never to go back to the house. Even when he died, Poe did not get anything from his foster father Porges 83-84. This led to Poe’s intention to take “revenge” in this case by proofing to his foster father that he was able to reach success through his ability of writing, the ability which was never been recognized by his foster father 62. In 1846, before he wrote The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar worked to write criticisms for Godey’s Lady’s Book magazine and very often his criticisms created protests and anger from the author. One of the protests created quarrel between Poe and the author, as quoted from an analysis on The Cask of Amontillado by Sucur: 33 Further inspiration for the tale may have come from “a bitter quarrel” in 1846 that developed between Poe and “the cohorts of the vengeful Mrs. Ellet led by Thomas Dunn English and Hiram Fuller”, with “The Cask of Amontillado” being “the working out of [Poe’s] immediate emotions” Sucur. Hence, from those inspirations above and the story he heard when he was in the Army; he wrote the story of The Cask of Amontillado while he accompanied Virginia during her last moments. 34

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This last chapter consists of two parts. The first part is the conclusions of the discussions of Edgar Allan Poe’s perception of death as seen in his short stories: The Mask of the Red Death, Ligeia, and The Cask of Amontillado. The second part is suggestions for future research and for the implementation of these literary works in English language teaching.

A. Conclusions

As one of many authors who often writes stories about death, Edgar Allan Poe must have his own perception about death itself. This fact has drawn my attention to do analysis and this is the time to answer the formulated problems above. As mentioned previously, I tried to figure out Poe’s perception on death as revealed in his three short stories: The Mask of the Red Death, Ligeia, and The Cask of Amontillado. The way to reveal Poe’s perception in those stories is by comparing three different elements which are the death figure, the cause of death, and the characters’ view of death in Poe’s different short stories: The Mask of the Red Death, Ligeia, and The Cask of Amontillado. It can be seen in the analysis that in all those stories Poe uses death as reflected in three elements: the death figure, the cause of death, and the characters’ view of death as means to trigger the terror and suspense and to create horrifying and gloomy atmosphere in the stories. 35 The death figures that appear in those stories are the Red Death plague and the masked figure in The Mask of the Red Death, the dead body of Ligeia and Rowena in Ligeia, and Fortunato’s corpse in the vault in The Cask of Amontillado. The second element discussed is the cause of the death. In The Mask of the Red Death, the death of Prince Prospero and his guests is caused by the Red Death plague and somehow we can see that there is a supernatural power from the mysterious masked figure that makes them die in sudden. In Ligeia, death is caused by two different things. The first one is the death of Lady Ligeia which is caused by a mysterious disease and the second one is Lady Rowena’s death which is caused by the poison given by the narrator who is her husband himself, or in other words, she dies because of murder. The same thing happens in The Cask of Amontillado. Montressor wants to take revenge to Fortunato. He chains Fortunato on the wall and seals the vault. He leaves Fortunato in the vault until he finally dies. Hence, it can be seen that the cause of death in The Cask of Amontillado is murder. Considering those facts above, it can be concluded that Edgar Allan Poe, through his three short stories: The Mask of the Red Death, Ligeia, and The Cask of Amontillado perceives death as something that creates terror and sadness, something fearful, horrifying, not the peaceful one. He employs the presence of death figures, various causes of death, and characters’ view of death to present his perception of death in his stories. Through his stories, Poe works hard at structuring his tales of aristocratic madman, self-tormented murderers, and other