Poe and the Imp of the Perverse

The Imp of the Perverse

Edgar Allan Poe is known for exploring the psychological constructs of horror and terror through his short stories. In Poe's "Imp of the Perverse," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Black Cat," the respective narrators of these stories attempt to give a logical explanation for the manner in which they conducted themselves. Through these stories, Poe explores the impact a mental illness has on the narrator's and how each of the narrators attempts to justify their behavior.

In "The Imp of the Perverse," Poe introduces the concept of phrenology, a science that seeks to establish and define the relationship between an individual's character and the skull's morphology and how phrenology has failed to explain impulsive behavior ("The History of Morphology"). It was important for Poe to define the imp of the perverse in the essay part of the short...
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