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Fear Of Murder

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What is it that can drive someone to commit a murder most foul? This is the question that Edgar Allen Poe asks the audience to ponder in his story, yet he gives scant clues as to the answer. The motive eludes readers, even as the murderer becomes so consumed by his own guilt and his mind and that he goes on to thoroughly detail his gruesome deed in his confession. It may have been his fear of those who are different, in combination with mental instability, which drove the “madman” to murder. The old man, as the victim, has the ability to represent many things; death, aging and patriarchal competition but none of those seem as though they would cause the man to commit such a horrific act. The man’s aversion to the eye itself is a representation …show more content…
The fear of the Other refers to the irrational fear of a person or being that is different in either appearance, culture or mental capabilities. In modern society we may refer to it as racism, ableism or xenophobia. The main character focuses on the deformed eye of the old man as a trait that disgusts him and attempts to use it to justify his actions. He slips into madness and fixates on the eye, giving it qualities that it can never possess. It is simply an eye, nothing more, it was not judging him or taunting him and yet his fear of it made him believe it to be the source of something evil. It was the only thing described about the old man that made him different and was the key problem for the seemingly mentally unstable killer. The final push into his despicable act was the man's belief that the old man could hear his thoughts, another completely irrational belief. The man believed that the old man …show more content…
This story was written by Poe in 1843, and perhaps it is a nod to the condition of American society at this time. At the time, Poe was living on the East Coast of the United States, at the height of an influx of immigrants coming into the country. With a large amount of outsiders coming into a country, friction between naturalized residents and newcomers would be considerably high. From 1820-1870’s, over seven and a half million immigrants arrived in the United States which was more than the population of the entire country in 1810. Most immigrants of this time period settled on the East Coast, where Poe was born, raised and lived as an adult. Poe would have been familiar with the issues that arose alongside this influx of all of these new and clashing cultures. One of the defining characteristics of xenophobia is that humans fear people that they do not understand and often view these people as a scape goat for their problems. Poe may have utilized his main character in this tale to represent the way in which he perceived those who fear that which they consider

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