Horrific Obsessions: Poe’s Legacy of the Unreliable and Self-Obsessed Narrator

Abstract

Many of Edgar Allan Poe’s works include obsessed narrators who are plagued by their unconscious in order to discover their true selves. Carl Jung declares that people wear a persona to present to the world that hides their true self from society, and even from themselves; “the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is” (Jung, “Concerning Rebirth,” 221). When one’s persona is in conflict with one’s inner self, tension can arise, and Jung declares that the unconscious can force the individual to come face to face with one’s true self, revealing the falseness of the persona that he or she wrongly identified with. Many of Poe’s narrators are so enveloped within false personas that they become unclear of their own realities and their own true identities, making them unreliable to the reader. Poe’s depiction of these characters shows their unconscious obsession to unmask themselves, revealing a self that does not adhere to societal expectations.