D. H. Lawrence wrote an essay that extensively describes Edgar Allen Poes writing style. Lawrence looks at Poes work as a scientific and mechanical way of writing. The tales Poe writes are not really tales at all. The only reason they are even considered as tales is because they are a concatenation of cause and effect. Lawrence saw Edgars stories as more than just a tales. They are love stories. Poe does not write looking at the human part of someones life. The characters are looked at as inanimate objects with human qualities, rather than the characters being human with inorganic qualities.
Lawrence elaborates on Poes style by mentioning that he finds it to be mechanical. Poe never sees anything in terms of life. He only views life in terms of matter or force, thus the Lawrences reference to scientific writing. This facile viewpoint on life brings out his sensitiveness to sounds and effect. Lawrence also believes that Edgar Allen Poe was a very deep man. He wrote with his soul. Poe gives you a look at what is underneath consciousness. His writing is all fair-spoken on the surface. Beneath it is more, the awful murderous thoughts that flowed inside Edgars head.
Lawrence confers about Poes style in Ligeia and how he wants to analyze her until he knows all of her parts and what they do. He sees her as a chemical salt, which he needs to analyze out in the test tube of his own brain. Overall Lawrence finds Edgar Allen Poes works to be mechanical and scientific. Poe has a different style of writing from any other. It is an inanimate type of writing. This makes his works interesting and suspenseful. If Poe did not have this type of style he would not be as well known today. Edgar uses his obscure styles to create his visual stories.
The Tell Tale Heart is mechanical and scientific in the way that Edgar Allen Poe has written it. Edgars mechanical style is evident in the way he describes the eye of the old man. He sees it as a thing that haunts his dreams. Poe shows the reader this in the descriptive way by writing, a pale blue eye, with film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; (36). This passage illustrates the way the eye is not even a part of the old man. Poe writes about the not wanting to kill the old man, just wanting to destroy the eye.
Picturing the eye we do not even see the old man being a part of it. Poe mechanically repeats words all through the story. This style is used well in Poes statement a very, very little crevice in the lantern (37), and again with It was openwide, wide open (37). Poes repetition heightens the senses and makes his point clear. Looking back at the first passage, it also states the eye made his blood run cold. The way the blood runs through him is a scientific insight. The scientific style of Edgar Allen Poe is relevant to this story. When he writes, First of all I dismembered the corpse.
I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. (Poe 38), shows his scientific language. With words such as corpse and dismembered it is hard not to think scientifically. Science is defined as the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Poes work falls into this category of science. For example, I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. (Poe 38). Describing something as stone is a cold way of looking at it. There is no life in a stone, and this is they way he pictures the old man.
In summery, Edgar Allen Poe has the most unique style of writing. His vast description of inanimate objects and his repetition make this possible. The work of Poe has a certain flow to it, which is somewhat mechanical. Edgars stories also have certain intelligence to them. They are written in a language that is scientific to read. Also, the way he describes the characters and objects with underling meaning gives his stories a different feel. Mechanical writing and scientific writing are techniques Poe uses to create his own unique style.
