This essay will discuss themes in Poe's writing that reflect his personal life and, furthermore, the fear and supernatural motivations of his characters. First, I will discuss Poe's background and explore how he became known as a poet for his tales of mystery and the macabre. In retrospect, he was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, an actor, abandoned the family when he was one and his mother, an actress, died of tuberculosis when he was 2. His adoptive parents cared for him as a child and their surname was Allan. This is where his full name Edgar Allan Poe comes from. When he was in college he wrote all over his walls and appeared gloomy and depressed to some classmates. He dropped out of school due to gambling debts. He married his very young cousin Virginia Clemm when she was 13; he died in 1847 after a long and hard battle with tuberculosis. A year after the death of his beloved wife, he attempts suicide and has a penchant for drinking. He was known to be unable to take even a little alcohol without changing his personality. Furthermore, in the poem "The Crow" the story is basically about a poor boy whose wife has died, and who goes mad, accompanied by the hallucination of a crow. who comes in through the window, sits on the door and sings “never again”. Considering that the poem The Raven was published in January 1845 and his wife died in 1847, then the poem could not be about his death and how he feels. But he could be talking about how she felt when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis in January 1842. So when The Crow was published she was most likely very ill and he knew she was going to die. Poe probably couldn't bear to see her disgusted and ro...... middle of paper......^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Sad and infinite memory. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 312–313. ISBN 0-06-092331-8^ Rust, Richard D. "Punish with Impunity: Poe, Thomas Dunn English, and 'The Cask of Amontillado'" in The Edgar Allan Poe Review, vol. II, number 2 - Fall, 2001, St. Joseph's University.^ Reynolds, David F. "Poe's Art of Transformation: 'The Cask of Amontillado' in Its Cultural Context," as collected in The American Novel: New Essays on Poe's Major Stories, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0521422433 pp. 96–7^ ab Benton, Richard P. (June 1996). "Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado': Its Cultural and Historical Context." Poe Studies 29: 19–27.^ Burton R. Pollin (1970). "Notre-Dame de Paris in two stories". Discoveries in Poe. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. page. 24–37.