I need to know what the social background is in Edgar Allan Poe's stories (the people and their ways of life, work habits, husband/wife relationship, involvement in the world at large).

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2003

Answers

Vague, fantasy, suggestive backgrounds. Gothic mansion, palaces, European, an ocean tale of the times(South Seas explorers), a western journey based on lewis and Clark and someone else's book on the fur trade. "The Man of the Crowd" is his most detailed urban scene. Lonely singular characters, obsessive relationships, stock fiction or stock characters not necessarilytaken from his environment(nobles, the rich, madmen). Not all that much description or social characterization. More like a poem using all these elements where reality is psychologically blended into the more extreme. However his hoaxes and pseudo journals of exploration attempt to capture the knowledge and science as the prime interest as in science fiction tales of wonder.

-- Anonymous, March 21, 2003