This paper analysis’s the famous writer and poet, Edgar Allan Poe’s personality. Using the four major theoretical personality perspectives, psychoanalytic, trait/cognitive, humanistic/existential, and social/behavioral, I have concluded that due to Edgar Allan Poe was not able to fully meet his life’s potential. The main reasoning behind Poe not achieving success would be losing his parents at an early age and not having anyone to fulfill his needs for parental affection. In particular, I analyzed Poe based on Melanie Klein’s object of relations theory, Gordon Allport’s trait theory, H. S. Sullivan’s interpersonal theory, and Abraham Maslow’s self-actualization theory.
Personality Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe
A great many of us have probably come along at least one Edgar Allen Poe piece sometime in their academic career. Poe is known internationally for writing eerie and suspenseful poems and short stories, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Many of us of know Poe as a madman, heavy drinker, and womanizer. The harsh critiques of Edgar Allan Poe are why I believe he would make an interesting and excellent character to undergo a personality analysis.
Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of David and Elizabeth Poe and brother to two other siblings. Both of Poe’s parents had died by the time he reached the age of three. Consequently, Poe and his siblings were split apart and went to live under different families. Poe was adopted by wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant and his wife Frances Valentine Allan of Richmond, Virginia.
While in Richmond, Poe attended top notch schooling in Scotland, England, and in Richmond. In 1826 Poe attended the University of Virginia. Even though he did exceptionally well in his studies, he didn’t enjoy college because of his strong passion to become a writer. He only lasted 11 months. During his college years, Poe felt he was betrayed by John Allan because he was receiving no financial help for college despite Allan’s personal wealth. Not only did this conflict lead Poe to drop college but also his addictive gambling.
When Poe returned to Richmond, Virginia after leaving college he came back to find his girlfriend and according to some sources his finance, Sarah Elmira Royste, engaged to another man. He then left for Baltimore where he published a pamphlet of poems.
Poe was forced to enlist in the United States Army for a chance to escape poverty. Here, Poe gained recognition and even became a Sergeant Major. A turn of events in 1829 led Poe and Allan to rekindle a relationship after the death of Allan’s wife Frances. It was then that Allan helped Poe to get into West Point. It didn’t take long for Allan to stop supporting Poe financially and out of revenge; Poe purposely got himself expelled from the academy by skipping all drills and classes for one full week. Before leaving West Point John Allan had died, leaving nothing in his will for Poe.
Without anywhere to turn, Poe went to his father home place in Baltimore to live with his aunt, Marie Clemm and his cousin Virginia Clemm. While living under their roof Poe and Virginia created a romantic relationship together and the two were wed. Oddly enough, Virginia was only thirteen years old at the time of marriage. While in Baltimore, Poe had won a contest with one of his short stories which landed him a job at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond.
From there on, Poe continued to have short lived job positions for various literary companies throughout Virginia, New York, and Philadelphia. As time passed he began becoming more popular and kept publishing books of his work. Poe also went out on his own ventures, trying to establish journals, none of which were successful. It wasn’t until after “The Raven” was published that Poe became a household name. His popularity grew so much from this poem that he was able to draw big crowds to lectures he would give around the east coast.
After fighting five years for her health, Virginia died from tuberculosis. Poe was completely shattered by her death and stopped writing for several months. After her death Poe dated a few other women for a brief period time. Sarah Helen Whitman was a poet who he was briefly engaged to. Poe then went on to date Annie Richmond and Sarah Anna Lewis. All o f the women were subjects in Poe’s poetry. Poe found himself engaged yet again to a now widowed Sarah Elmira Royster, who he dated up until his death.
Many say that the Virginia Poe’s passing was the death of Poe. Only two years after her death Edger Allen Poe died at the age of 40 in Washington Hospital after being found in a bar room of a public house that was being used as a polling place for an election. To this day no one knows the exact cause of Poe’s death.
Using Object of Relations Theory to analyze Edgar Allan Poe, I believe that many of his later problems in life such as drinking and his disturbing stories come from the loss of his parents at an early age. According to the object of relations theory, an infant’s make external and internal representations of objects that provide needs and desires. The main object being a child’s mother, from her nurture and care, and infant receives his needs and desires and builds a trustful relationship with his mother before any other object. As an infant grows, this relationship extends to other objects and the infant learns to think for itself.
Since Poe’s mother was taken away from him at such a young age, this caused an incomplete relationship and ruined the process of object development within Poe. Although I had found nothing about how Poe’s mother treated him, I’m assuming that she was a caring mother. Not only did Poe loose his father but the rest of his family as well. His father passed away and he was separated from his siblings. This left a young Poe with no familiar relationships or care givers, leaving him on his own to adapt to new people. Poe had no idea where to get his needs and desires from because he had not yet fully capable of taking care of himself. Even though he was placed into a foster home, he had no trust for his foster parents, John and Francis Allan.
Throughout his life John Allan didn’t support Poe financially which led to further distrust in their relationship, adding salt to the wound. Poe continued to drink all of his life but I think the loss of his parents and being thrown into a brand new family, that did him wrong time and time again was the main source behind his drinking behavior and possibly the dark poems and stories.
Using Gordon Allport’s trait theory, I found that Edgar Allen Poe may have bypassed some stages within the theory including the role of religion and some stages within proprium. I also believe that some stages Poe went through at an earlier age than normal individuals do.
As for Allport’s role of religion unifying philosophy on life stage; Allport believes that religion molds and shapes who a person is (Lecture, 2011). However, Poe’s religious belief system seemed to change constantly throughout his life. According to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, Poe was baptized by the doings of his foster parents, John and Francis Allen, at the age of three. The Allan’s regularly attended church services and as a child Poe was taught religious lessons in school.
As an adult, Poe’s views changed. He didn’t attend mandatory church services while at West Point and occasionally went to them with friends or family. Religious references can be found a large selection of Poe’s work. Poe stated in a letter to Marie Louise Shew, “How can I believe in Providence when you look coldly upon me, was it not you who renewed my hopes and faith in God? . . . Why I was not a priest is a mystery, for I feel I am now a prophet. Poe wrote to Thomas Holley Chivers saying, “My own faith is indeed my own. You will find it, somewhat detailed, in a forthcoming number of the ‘Columbian Magazine”. The Edgar Allan Poe Society states on their webpage that, “The most realistic view is that Poe’s religious inclinations changed greatly back and forth during his lifetime, but were never seriously abandoned,’(Edgar, 2010).
I think that Poe was always uncertain and questioning religion throughout his adulthood. From Allport’s prospective, “He believed that commitment to religious beliefs can help organize and give constructive meaning to our lives,” (Ryckman, 2008, pg. 282). This statement coming from our textbook leads me to think that Allport would view Poe as someone immature and not fully developed because unsettled religious views.
Using Allport’s theory, I also believe that Poe grew up and took on self responsibility earlier than most children. Allport’s functional autonomy stage is when individuals separate from their parents and come for independent. Since Poe’s parents both died at a young age and he didn’t have a good relationship with his John Allan, Poe had to be independent at a young age (Lecture, 2011).
Gordon Allport’s trait theory has left researchers unable to test the theory because it lacks specific propositions. However, Allport’s distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity has created a considerable amount of research of the past five decades (Ryckman, 2008, pg. 290).
H. S. Sullivan theorized that people are driven by two different concepts, the desire to be secure or the desire to be satisfied. He also believed that humans develop self mechanisms to reduce anxiety and stress. Over time, we as humans condition ourselves to positive and negative past experiences which helps us to abolish anxiety and stress. Sullivan suggested that people use security operations to help them manage relationships to protect themselves from abandonment (Online Lecture, 2011).
As stated in my biography, Edgar Allan Poe frequently lost jobs from drinking and not performing well. He dropped out of college and West Point military academy although he was a good student and did well in the military.
Using H. S. Sullivan’s theory, I believe that Poe was largely driven by the desire to be satisfied rather than the desire to be secure. I stated in the biography that Poe was constantly poor. This proves that financial secure and at some points, shelter, were not one of his main concerns. He had two huge opportunities (college and the military) that guaranteed he could have a successful and stable career and income but he willingly left those choices behind. Instead, he chose to take low paying, entry-level jobs to get him further into writing. He didn’t seem to care about the need for security but the need to be satisfied.
Using Abraham Maslow’s self-actualization theory to analyze Edgar Allan Poe, I believe that because Poe wasn’t able to meet his basic needs that he was never able to reach the top level of self-actualization.
According to Abraham Maslow an individual needs to meet basic needs before proceeding on to cognitive needs. Using a hierarchy pyramid, Maslow explains the steps in which a person meets basic needs to continue onto the next level. These steps from bottom up consist of physiological needs, safety, love/belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization (Lecture, 2011).
Physiological needs are defined as hunger, thirst and sex. Safety needs are defined as physical and financial security. Love/belongingness needs are defined as feeling wanted and accepted by friends, family, and others. Esteem needs are defined as having self-esteem and respect from others. These four are what Maslow considered basic needs and after these are fulfilled an individual can move on to the top need of self-actualization which is defined as realizing your full potential to lead a successful and prosperous life (Lecture, 2011).
As stated in my biography and previous analyzations, Poe’s parents died when he was still a toddler and he did not have a good relationship with his foster parent, John Allan. Poe and Allan’s main cause for controversy was when John Allan stopped funding Poe during his college years at the University of Virginia and when Poe got himself expelled from West Point. Because of the tattered relationship between John Allan and Edgar Poe, I believe that Poe never fully met his needs for love and belonging.
I also believe that from this same unhealthy relationship that Poe never fully met the level of esteem by gaining respect from John Allan. John Allan never accepted Poe’s desire to be a writer and never supported him. As a counteraction to Allan’s actions, Poe resorted in unacceptable behavior such as gambling, drinking, and purposely getting himself expelled from West Point which threw his life off course.
Applying Abraham Maslow’s theory, Poe’s failure to meet the needs of love/belongingness and esteem caused him to never meet self-actualization. Poe’s life was thrown off course in college by gambling and drinking leading him to make poor decisions and an unhealthy lifestyle. Poe was never able to meet his full potential because of these setbacks.
Abraham Maslow’s theory has found to be impossible to accurately test its validity. Researchers have used adequate measure of actualization to test the theory but the results have never been consistently supportive. For example, Richard Ryckman and several other psychologists preformed an independent study with undergraduate college students. Their results found no support that actualizers are physically strong, fit people. Despite the negative results, research on the validity of this theory continues today (Ryckman, 2008, pg. 444).
References
Edgar Allan Poe. (2011). Biography.com. Retrieved 08:30, May 11 2011 from http://www.biography.com/articles/Edgar-Allan-Poe-9443160
Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. (2011, October 11). Edger Allan Poe and Religion. Retrieved from: http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poerelig.htm
Lecture. (2011). Theories of Personality PSY3020. Weekly Lectures. Retrieved from: http://myeclassonline.com/
Ryckman M. Richard. (2008). Theories of Personality. 10 Davis Drive Belmont, CA: Thompson Higher Education
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