This essay will discuss themes in Poe's writings 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 best known as a poet for his mysterious and macabre tales. Looking back, he was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His actor father abandoned the family when he was one year old and his actress mother died of tuberculosis when he was 2 years old. His adoptive parents looked after him when he was a young child and their last name was Allan. This is where his full name Edgar Allan Poe comes from. When he was in college, he painted all his walls and appeared gloomy and depressed to some classmates. He withdrew from college due to gambling debts. He married his very young cousin Virginia Clemm when she was 13; she died in 1847 after a long and difficult battle with tuberculosis. A year after the death of his beloved wife, he attempted suicide and became more weak in drinking. He was known for being unable to take even a little alcohol without changing his personality. Additionally, in the poem “The Raven,” the story is essentially about a poor man whose wife has died and who goes crazy, accompanied by the hallucination of a crow. who goes through the window, stands above the door and sings “never again”. Considering the poem, the crow was published in January 1845 and his wife died in 1847, so the poem cannot be about his death and how he feels. But it could be about how he 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 stand to see her sickening and ro...... middle of paper ......^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Sad and endless memory. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 312-313. ISBN 0-06-092331-8^ Rust, Richard D. "Punishing with Impunity: Poe, Thomas Dunn English, and 'The Cask of Amontillado'" in The Edgar Allan Poe Review, Vol. II, Issue 2 – Fall 2001, St. Joseph 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 Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0521422433 pp. 96–7 ^ ab Benton, Richard P. (June 1996). "Poe's Cask of Amontillado: Its Cultural and Historical Background". Poe Studies 29:19-27. ^ Burton R. Pollin (1970). “Notre-Dame de Paris in Deux des Contes”. Discoveries at Poé. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 24–37.