How Poe shows in his works the irrationality and duality of man's psyche? In which works?

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2003

Answers

"William Wilson" "The tell-Tale Heart" "The Imp of the perverse" etc. once you get the picture. Each man has the seeds of his own destruction within him. Poe sometimes neatly splits the psyche to show this(William Wilson) or shows a crazed man using meticulous analysis. The split also shows itself in the excited emotional state versus the cooly rational state, intuition(poetry) vs. reason(science). This is also the Classical/Romantic antithesis which is also sometimes intimately joined in a wild often destructive ride. See the poem "Ulalume" and "The Raven" for this self dialogue of two sides grappling with a central sorrow.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2003