Obsessive Neurosis and Paranoia in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories

Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe was a prolific writer known to be one of the American masters of the Gothic short story. Concerned with a wide range of topics such as death, isolation, or the paranormal, Poe creates a world full of terror which traps his tormented characters in a perpetual state of self-induced madness. Obsessions and subsequent compulsions, aggravated by continuous intrusive thoughts, shape the characters’ psyche and contribute greatly to the deterioration of their balance. Thus, their actions and eventual crimes are a direct consequence of a climatic impulsiveness caused by their fixated moral perversion. This BA thesis will analyse some selected stories by Edgar Allan Poe from a psychoanalytical point of view. It will bring to light the manifestation in each story of repeated patterns of Sigmund Freud’s conception of obsessional neurosis, as well as its close relation to the development of paranoia. The analysis of Poe’s stories will be, then, carried out within Freudian theoretical framework, which will be enriched by the contribution of other psychoanalysts.