hey! well i need help woth BERENICE by POE, i don't get the ending, ok she is supposed to be alive right? then what does the dental instruments got to do with it? is he going to take her teeth out?? i dunno, lol!!!! please help me, send analisis, anything would help!!!!!! thx!!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2003

Answers

Dental horror. Poe tried to pass this off as a bit of self parody when he got complaints on this. he is partly right. Worse things had been written in his time. The obsessed narrator went into fugue state and removed the teeth. Unfortunately this was another lady not quite dead.

So he dug her up toremove her haunting teeth and ironically saved her life- if not her smile.

Upon reading the first few paragraphs it does seem clear that story begins laced with satire and off-handed parody. Poe gets into it way too much and by the end the humor seems a bit lost.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2003