Michael Morrison
Morrison Marketing
Augusta, Georgia
"Review of Berenice Quotes"
(This man is obviously very disturbed)
Notes to keep in mind while reading Berenice
Monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania) was a form of partial insanity conceived as single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind. Partial insanity, variations of which enjoyed a long pre-history in jurisprudence, was in contrast to the traditional notion of total insanity, exemplified in the diagnosis of mania, as a global condition effecting all aspects of understanding and which reflected the position that the mind or soul was an indivisible entity
An idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind held so firmly as to resist any attempt to modify it, a fixation
(Something that I imagine Berenice would look like)
"MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch - as distinct too, yet as intimately blended."
This is the opening line to Berenice and has to be the one of the most dense and meaningful sentences for referring to depression and mental illness. Very few times can someone describe mental processes like Poe, he was writing this with first hand inspiration. Poe was very much involved constantly in melancholy, a favorite word of him and used frequently in his writing.
These passages are precisely what a lot of the North East establishment was fretting about. This is disturbing it is like mental suffering porn, to read lines such as the ones above is to true and in fast as possible induce a feeling of gloom over the person. I do not know how Poe wrote his stories, such as outlining them, rough-drafting or the many other processes involved in writing and unique to each literary figure.
"Misery is manifold..."
I think this means that misery is very present and spreads to every thing in the world. This would have been true in Poe's life, he could hardly sport much consistent time in a good mood and setting. Poe would never achieve a comfortable life for more than a year or 2. He may have been mentally troubled to the point of subconsciously failing to place himself in misery and self pity, I am not a psychoanalyst, but I feel to have a view directly into this mans head through his literature.
I think this means that misery is very present and spreads to every thing in the world. This would have been true in Poe's life, he could hardly sport much consistent time in a good mood and setting. Poe would never achieve a comfortable life for more than a year or 2. He may have been mentally troubled to the point of subconsciously failing to place himself in misery and self pity, I am not a psychoanalyst, but I feel to have a view directly into this mans head through his literature.
"Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to say that I had not lived before - that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it? - let us not argue the matter."
This is a spine chilling line to me, the slickness and anticipation into what the narrator actually truly believes so confidently is scary. Does he indulge in further superstitions? He rode off a debate about this as though it was 100% assured in his mind.
This is a spine chilling line to me, the slickness and anticipation into what the narrator actually truly believes so confidently is scary. Does he indulge in further superstitions? He rode off a debate about this as though it was 100% assured in his mind.
"And the victim -where is she? I knew her not - or knew her no longer as Berenice."
This is such a sad confirmation in the story of a point of no return, the lady has been there to long, she must die, there cannot be happiness in Poe's stories. To watch a loved one wear away to the point of not recognizing them is sad in itself and anyone who is going through that while reading this story should feel a stark realization of what Poe was experiencing.
This is such a sad confirmation in the story of a point of no return, the lady has been there to long, she must die, there cannot be happiness in Poe's stories. To watch a loved one wear away to the point of not recognizing them is sad in itself and anyone who is going through that while reading this story should feel a stark realization of what Poe was experiencing.
"Among the numerous train of maladies super-induced by that fatal and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind in the moral and physical being of my cousin..."
This is an example of Poe's writing style and again one of critic from the contemporary writers of the time to him. The use of adjectives, metaphors and similes that Poe was excellent at is probably his most copied trait in writing.
This is an example of Poe's writing style and again one of critic from the contemporary writers of the time to him. The use of adjectives, metaphors and similes that Poe was excellent at is probably his most copied trait in writing.
"To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the margin, or in the typography of a book; to become absorbed, for the better part of a summer's day, in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry or upon the floor; to lose myself, for an entire night, in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower."
This suffering is one of Poe's directly. Poe must have needed to write this out, I imagine that he spent many days in a similar room to a library and thought heavily on his dying woman and past suffering. The attempt to escape the depression and unease is the most sympathetic feeling we have to Poe, he is sincerely trying to keep his mind in the right place, but is always losing that fight. The art of writing is said to have some therapeutic affects. Stephen King says so many times throughout his intros, in "On Writing" and in
"True to its own character, my disorder reveled in the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of Berenice - in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal identity."
Poe talked of woman as some sort of object, and not as a person. Although in Poe's situation his marriage to his younger cousin is freaky enough to out-shadow this small aspect. This trait is shared by sexual criminals. They are like windows for eyes that only one side can see. They think as one view and as one set of circumstances bypassing a possible victims and thus making the action of a crime easier to justify in his/her own mind.
"During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind."
Poe was speaking on behalf of a lot of intellectuals and people in general who work with their ideas and brains heavily. Beyond the wealth through labor and the satisfaction of curiosity, being intelligent can lead to a scenario of depression, seclusion and disappointment in mundane life. To study work like Poe itself is sometimes lonely, but relative to other literary figures he is a modern celebrity. This speaks to me somewhat personally in Aegis.
"but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now - now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage."
This is again going back to how Poe views woman. He is obviously quite one sided and Berenice is not given to many personality traits. Nothing much beyond Poe's Obsession of the usual Feminine character in his works.
"An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face."
The character is obviously so very disturbed I feel so bad for him for having to suffer this kind of pain. The description seems so real and of a first person account. The narrator was acting basically as an outlet for Poe to release some of these mental descriptions as things that struck him, not in the direct manner of the disease in which Aegis is struck with, but in addiction, grief and simply brain chemistry being off.
"The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. "
Poe has a good theme going through this story of the minds obsession, this is another stellar example. She departed from the physical world, but "stuck" to his brain. The lack of control over one owns thoughts are scary in itself.
"I felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving me back to reason."
This is so close to what I would expect somebody with Monomania to say, Poe is either very familiar on mental diseases from a firsthand account, spent a lot of time editing and forming consistent features or simply was a genius at standing in the light of another judgement, he could step into another shoes, or he was stepping into his own. I think equally both, Poe was disturbed, but also an anomaly that is a genius.
"and still I sat buried in meditation - and still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy, as, with the most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber."
This is a direct reference to the Schizophrenia the narrator is experiencing. It slipped my attention until about the 8th or 9th time hearing this story that I noticed he is referring to an actual set of teeth that is floating around his room, his eyes following every shift. The Narrator has just about lost it all at this point and the disease seems to be toying with him to his death. He is openly crazy at this point. His reaction to this is notably lacking. He is accepting it and decaying further until a end that cannot end well.
"I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware, that since the setting of the sun, Berenice had been interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive, at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror - horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to decipher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed - what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me, - " what was it? "
The narrator has to come to himself to remember what has just happened. The schizophrenic character has purged the memory of digging his cousin up. He is confused and his conscious and unconscious may very well be in disagreement The full force of the n a disease has entertained its desire and he does not even remember it. The forgetting of such a n act is scary itself. Our narrator cannot go on much longer.
"He pointed to garments; - they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand: it was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor, it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor."
In an excellent piece of writing Poe wraps up the story with the moment the audience has been waiting for. The narrator has lost it completely now and the story must come to an end. His satisfied monomaniac fantasy of holding the teeth is complete and he is founded to be the culprit of such actions. The fear of the man who had to confront Poe shows the shock of such a crime.
=================================================================
Thanks for reading my review of Berenice. Below are some useful links that I utilized in this and other writing about Poe and his works,
Michael G. Morrison
Morrison Marketing
Augusta, Georgia, USA
This suffering is one of Poe's directly. Poe must have needed to write this out, I imagine that he spent many days in a similar room to a library and thought heavily on his dying woman and past suffering. The attempt to escape the depression and unease is the most sympathetic feeling we have to Poe, he is sincerely trying to keep his mind in the right place, but is always losing that fight. The art of writing is said to have some therapeutic affects. Stephen King says so many times throughout his intros, in "On Writing" and in
"True to its own character, my disorder reveled in the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of Berenice - in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal identity."
Poe talked of woman as some sort of object, and not as a person. Although in Poe's situation his marriage to his younger cousin is freaky enough to out-shadow this small aspect. This trait is shared by sexual criminals. They are like windows for eyes that only one side can see. They think as one view and as one set of circumstances bypassing a possible victims and thus making the action of a crime easier to justify in his/her own mind.
"During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind."
Poe was speaking on behalf of a lot of intellectuals and people in general who work with their ideas and brains heavily. Beyond the wealth through labor and the satisfaction of curiosity, being intelligent can lead to a scenario of depression, seclusion and disappointment in mundane life. To study work like Poe itself is sometimes lonely, but relative to other literary figures he is a modern celebrity. This speaks to me somewhat personally in Aegis.
"but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now - now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage."
This is again going back to how Poe views woman. He is obviously quite one sided and Berenice is not given to many personality traits. Nothing much beyond Poe's Obsession of the usual Feminine character in his works.
"An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face."
The character is obviously so very disturbed I feel so bad for him for having to suffer this kind of pain. The description seems so real and of a first person account. The narrator was acting basically as an outlet for Poe to release some of these mental descriptions as things that struck him, not in the direct manner of the disease in which Aegis is struck with, but in addiction, grief and simply brain chemistry being off.
"The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. "
Poe has a good theme going through this story of the minds obsession, this is another stellar example. She departed from the physical world, but "stuck" to his brain. The lack of control over one owns thoughts are scary in itself.
"I felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving me back to reason."
This is so close to what I would expect somebody with Monomania to say, Poe is either very familiar on mental diseases from a firsthand account, spent a lot of time editing and forming consistent features or simply was a genius at standing in the light of another judgement, he could step into another shoes, or he was stepping into his own. I think equally both, Poe was disturbed, but also an anomaly that is a genius.
"and still I sat buried in meditation - and still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy, as, with the most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber."
This is a direct reference to the Schizophrenia the narrator is experiencing. It slipped my attention until about the 8th or 9th time hearing this story that I noticed he is referring to an actual set of teeth that is floating around his room, his eyes following every shift. The Narrator has just about lost it all at this point and the disease seems to be toying with him to his death. He is openly crazy at this point. His reaction to this is notably lacking. He is accepting it and decaying further until a end that cannot end well.
"I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware, that since the setting of the sun, Berenice had been interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive, at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror - horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to decipher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed - what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me, - " what was it? "
The narrator has to come to himself to remember what has just happened. The schizophrenic character has purged the memory of digging his cousin up. He is confused and his conscious and unconscious may very well be in disagreement The full force of the n a disease has entertained its desire and he does not even remember it. The forgetting of such a n act is scary itself. Our narrator cannot go on much longer.
"He pointed to garments; - they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand: it was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor, it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor."
In an excellent piece of writing Poe wraps up the story with the moment the audience has been waiting for. The narrator has lost it completely now and the story must come to an end. His satisfied monomaniac fantasy of holding the teeth is complete and he is founded to be the culprit of such actions. The fear of the man who had to confront Poe shows the shock of such a crime.
=================================================================
Thanks for reading my review of Berenice. Below are some useful links that I utilized in this and other writing about Poe and his works,
Michael G. Morrison
Morrison Marketing
Augusta, Georgia, USA
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