Dealing with such a frightful disease like breast cancer can be very painful, being the love one of that unfortunate person can be just as painful. Edgar Allan Poe is an author best known for his tragic poetry and heart-wrenching tales of mystery. His past indicates that it had a huge impact on his life, contributing to his insanity. The enormous amount of tragedy that has surrounded Edgar Allan Poe, all his life, makes him a great candidate for writing a common love story struck by all the agonies of sudden death.
     With the loss of someone special in your life often comes that irreplaceable void, when losing them to a long-suffering battle like breast cancer, many tend to mourn uncontrollably which is normal. “ Breast cancer is a frightening disease. It can be fatal and while two thirds of the cases among mature women. It also strikes younger females and nine thousand males each year “ ( Landau 13). Many believe that cancer patients are the strongest persons alive, the loved ones try to be strong for them but eventually ends up losing there way.
     In this day and age Cancer has started become an epidemic. Doctors have diagnosed hundreds of different types of cancer which can strike at anytime. Soon everyone will suffer or will have suffered from this social problem. “ Cancer is a general term used to indicate more than 100 separate diseases, but all marked by the common characterists of abnormal cell growth regulating mechanisms” ( Rodgers 14). Fortunately, with the advance in technology growing every day, many cancer diagnoses can be regulated or even cured with simple surgery.
     
     Tragedy and pain are two things known all too well by poet Edgar Allan Poe. While he’d never suffered from any disease before he did from the severe feeling of loss. “ Edgar Allan Poe as a young man at the age of twenty- seven, he married his cousin Virginia Clemm in 1836, she was only thirteen years old” ( Zachary 49). “ Eliza Arnold Hopkins was a skilled actress who charmed theater audiences throughout the eastern United States. Sadly , she died at the age of twenty-four and left her son Edgar an orphan” (Ibid 10). In his lifetime Edgar Allan Poe lost almost all the women in his, from his Mother, Eliza Arnold Hopkins Poe, to his wife, Virginia Clemm Poe, who both died of tuberculosis. These events were thought to be the source of his pain. Poe’s ongoing emotional distress and self anguish might have contributed to his well known disturbing love stories such as “Annabel Lee” and “ The Brides Song “ or his mysterious short stories like “ The Tell-Tale Heart” and “ The Black Cat” .
     Edgar was quite the hopeless romantic showering his wife, Virginia, with loving gifts that he could afford but Poe had a notable different side to his personality believed to be his subconscious, where he kept all his dreadful thoughts and feelings. Only to have them resurface on paper through his creative writing. His atrocious personal beliefs of humans tortured, mamed and killed was a sign that Poe was experiencing huge amounts of pain in his inner core.
     The mystery behind telling a good tragic love story is to make the reader feel as though they are apart of the story, whether they are that charming prince falling in love

with the radiant maiden or vice versa. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the few Tragic Poets who are qualified for this, but because of Poe’s past he could create a better story line. “ Stress, a bodily or mental reaction to demanding situations disrupts the operations of both the endocrine and the immune system. Some believe this has an impact on the occurrence of cancer” ( Rodgers 16). Breast cancer is such a sensitive subject because of the simple fact that it is one of the two parts most sacred to women so to see that it is not in the least bit safe is psychologically discomforting.
     Whether or not Edgar Allan Poe take on a love story about breast cancer will make
people more aware of it is unclear but it defiantly should make others without breast cancer in their lives more sensitive to the fact that this is a serious problem that everyone in some way or another is dealing with it. “ The 5-year survival rate for localized breast cancer is now 90% if cancer has spread, however, the survival rate is 60%” (Rodgers 38).
     









                         Bibliography

Kent, Zachery
Edgar Allan Poe, Tragic Poet and Master of Mystery
Enslow Publishers, Inc.
New Jersey
2001

Landau, Elaine
Breast Cancer
A Division of Grolier Publishing
New York
1995

Rodgers, Joann E.
Cancer
Chealsea House Publishers
New York
1938






























          

               Edgar Allan Poe
           and Breast Cancer


                    By: April Ratliff