One Deadly Psychotic Break Essay -- Literary Analysis

An online dictionary defines affable illness as all of various disorders in which a persons thoughts, emotions, or behavior are so abnormal as to cause wretched to himselfor other people a second definition is any of various psychiatric disorders or diseases, usually characterized by impairment of thought, mood, or behavior (Thefreedictionary.com). In Edgar Allan Poes short story Ligeia, the narrator utterly satisfies both of the above definitions. In Poes story, the nameless narrators beautiful wife Ligeia lives with him a short time before she dies. afterward her death, the narrator re-marries to Rowena, who eventually dies as well. At the conclusion of the story, his scratch, beloved wife returns to him through the body of Rowena. In currentity, however, Poes story is far contrary from what it at first seems. The narrator, under the influence of opium, creates Ligeia in his mind and, when she dies, he kills Rowena himself to bring his first wife back. In the artic le Poes gossamer Ligeia, Jack and June Davis describe Ligeia as the faulty account of an insane narrator who knows Ligeia only through his opium hallucinations but who wants to present her as a real and credible person (171). The narrator uses Ligeia to chase the elusive secret to unremitting life. When she dies, instead of forgoing his search, the narrator procures Rowena in order to present Ligeia with a dead body to return through thus, he commits murder to withdraw out his insane plot. Because the narrator of Poes story fabricates the existence of his first wife, uses her to pursue eternal life, and kills his second bride to bring Ligeia back, he can be classified as mentally deranged.Ligeias unreality is strong show up for the instability... ...im. What the deranged narrator once perceived as a supremacy over death is, in reality, nothing more than a drug-induced insane break.Works CitedBasler, Roy. The Interpretation of Ligeia. College English. 5.7 (1944) 363-372. W eb. 7 Apr. 2012.Basler, Roy, and James Schroeter. Poes Ligeia. PMLA. 77.5 (1962) 675. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.Davis, Jack L., and June H. Davis. Poes gauzy Ligeia. Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. 24.4 (1970) 170-176. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.Espejo, Roman. psychogenic Illness. Farmington Hills, MI Greenhaven Press, 2012. Print.Mental Illness - Definition. The free dictionary by farlex. Farlex, Inc., 2011. Web. 13 Apr 2012. .Rabkin, Leslie Y. Psychopathology and Literature. San Francisco, CA Chandler Publishing Company, 1966. Print.