Edgar Allan Poe

Reading Time:  Wednesday, 9:30-11:15

So this week I was able to substitute for a Language Arts middle school teacher.  I noticed that she had a rather large library of books that students could borrow in her room so I looked through them to see what she had available.  I noticed a book of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and since I've never had the opportunity to read anything by him I decided to read it during one of my breaks.

The first story I read was The Purloined Letter.  The book described it as a mystery and I love mysteries so I decided to read it first.  I really liked it.  It begins by a law officer coming to ask for help from a detective in solving the crime of a stolen letter.  I liked it a lot because the entire time it was talking about how the answer was right in front of everyone's face and so I kept trying to figure it out.  As I was reading I just kept thinking, "Just tell me already!"  Finally, the detective is able to figure it out and explains it to the reader.  One thing that I really found interesting was that the author chose not to use full names for his characters but to instead call them Mr. D____ or Capt. R____.  I wonder why he did this?

The second story I read was much more weird.  I read The Tell-Tale Heart.  At first the title made no sense but by the end of the story it completely did.  It is a story about a man who decides that this friendly old man must die because he thinks he has an evil eye.  He carefully waits for the right time to carry out the act.  But then he decides to dismember and hide the body under the floorboards of the house!  Gross!  I basically checked out of the book at that point but only had a few pages left so read on.  Finally, as the police come to question him about the old man he begins to feel guilty by hearing the heart beat of the old man and so it it the tell-tale heart that finally makes him confess to the murder.

I like Edgar Allan Poe I will definitely read more of his work but I think I'll research what each is about before I read it!