Paradigms of reality in Poe\u27s mad narrative

This study focuses on an examination of madness in four short stories by American author Edgar Allan Poe: Ligeia, Eleonora, The Black Cat, and The Fall of the House of Usher. Using Walter Fischer\u27s theoretical communication framework, the Narrative Paradigm, the four stories are examined for narrative fidelity and narrative probability in an effort to more fully understand Poe\u27s treatment of madness in first person narrators; Ligeia and Eleonora are compared as stories of a lost lover and the subsequent possibilities for madness due to guilt over marrying someone else. Next, The Black Cat is examined with a focus on the narrator\u27s madness driving him to seek more and more severe forms of self-punishment due to guilt over violent abuse of his pet cat. Finally, The Fall of the House of Usher is examined as a look into the process of folie a deux, or shared madness