Alcoholism's Influence on Edgar Allan Poe 

Edgar Allan Poe's Dark History 

Edgar Allan Poe is a known alcoholic, and it is not news that he had his fair share of mental health struggles. According to Grunge.com's "The Truth About Edgar Allan Poe's Struggles with Alcohol Addiction" by Toby Arguello, he had struggled with alcohol addiction, and it cost him his job as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, a magazine he wrote for. As his addiction worsened, he was binging excessive amounts of alcohol to cope and started to struggle with anxiety following the death of his wife. Poe admitted to attempting suicide with the use of opium shortly after the loss of his wife and job. In one of Poe's personal letters between him and George W. Eveleth on January 4, 1848, he commented, as quoted in eapoe.org, "During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had, indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the death of my wife” (qtd. in Edgar Allan Poe, Drugs, and Alcohol, para.13).  He had a traumatic upbringing in which his dad was an alcoholic and his mother died of Tuberculosis when he was just a few years old. Due to his experiences, alcoholism played a significant role in many of Poe's stories.

Edgar Allan Poe portrait in The J. Paul Getty Museum of Los Angeles (Crane).

The Story of "The Cask of Amontillado" 

Poe's poem, "The Cask of Amontillado," is a thorough representation on the power of alcohol. Fortunato is led to his death through the persuasion of an offer of fine wine. Poe explains how much control alcohol has over a person by using it as a manipulation tactic. Fortunato is offered a fine wine called Amontillado and is tricked to follow Montressor in creepy conditions by his ego being threatened when he is compared to another wine connoisseur. When his reliability in knowing wines is questioned, he feels he must prove himself. Alcohol had power over him in that moment. Montressor gives Fortunato many opportunities to abandon the fatal journey, but Fortunato must try the Amontillado. Fortunato is extremely sick but is following Montressor through a cold, wet, and dark cave with the sole intention of tasting Amontillado. 

Montressor offers Fortunato an opportunity to prioritize his health in saying: "Come... we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi-." Fortunato surely replies: "Enough... the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough" (Charters, p. 784).

Fortunato is choosing to pursue alcohol despite being ill and is confident that it will not kill him. There is irony in his confidence because alcohol was responsible for his death. Or the desire of it was.  

Montressor (right) leading Fortunato (left) through the Catacombs in "The Cask of Amontillado" (Stockard Miller). 

Alcoholism and Poe

There is the saying that art imitates life. I think that Poe's personal struggles with his mental health and addiction inspired a lot of his work. In numerous works including "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat" his characters are alcoholics or addicts. In "The Black Cat," the narrator struggles with alcoholism as well as violent episodes. This seems to mirror the triggers Poe himself felt under the influence of alcohol. According to "Edgar Allan Poe and Neurology" by Teive, Paola, and Munhoz, "Poe was extremely sensitive to alcohol, with exacerbated behavioral changes" (p. 467). His voice as an author seems to oftentimes blend with the voice of his characters. Having biographical knowledge of Poe's depressing and traumatizing circumstances makes it easy to see the connection between his personal battles and those of his characters. It is hard to not carry your history with you as a writer. Life bleeds into your work, even if it is fiction.  

Works Cited

Arguello, Toby. "The Truth About Edgar Allan Poe's Struggles with Alcohol Addiction." Grunge.com, https://www.grunge.com/630802/the-truth-about-edgar-allan-poes-struggles-with-alcohol-addiction/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2023.

Charters, Ann. "The Cask of Amontillado." The Story and Its Writer, edited by Maura Shae, Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2019, pp. 782-87.

Crane, Arnold. Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe. 1849. J. Paul Getty Museum, no. 84.XT.957, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1040HX#full-artwork-details. 

Edgar Allan Poe, Drugs, and Alcohol. 24 Jan. 2009, https://eapoe.org/geninfo/poealchl.htm. Accessed 6 Apr. 2023. 

Stockard Miller, Michelle. Edgar Allan Poe– The Cask of Amontillado. 2015. Castle Macabre - I delight in what I fear..., http://castlemacabre.blogspot.com/2015/09/edgar-allan-poe-cask-of-amontillado.html. Accessed 4 April 2023.  

Teive, Hélio Afonso Ghizoni. “Edgar Allan Poe and Neurology.” Arquivos de Neuro-psiquiatria, vol. 72, no. 6, 2014, pp. 466-8. https://doi.org/10.1590/0004-282x20140048. Accessed 4 April 2023. 



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