Pondering Poe

I watched "Fall of the House of Usher" today (the original, with Vincent Price).

I've always liked old Roger Corman, Hammer Horror and Vincent Price films.  Obviously, I've read works by Edgar Allen Poe and we certainly had to study his poetry in elementary school.  What I did not realize until a few years ago was that Poe had migraines.  This gave new meaning to this work for me, one that I've not seen discussed before.

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Roderick complains of a variety of symptoms, including:  a morbid acuteness of the senses,  eyes that were tormented by all but the faintest of illumination,  and an extreme sensitivity to odour and sound.  I can relate, as when I get ill, I am often stuck in a room with no light or sound for days.  I literally cannot even more enough to feed the cats and they've learned to fend for themselves.  I wonder if Poe wasn't projecting when he wrote?  Roderick was a character described very much like an agoraphobic.  People with severe migraines often give up making plans, as they so often fall through.  A change in routine is often triggering.  I'm a person who is stuck on a graveyard shift sleep pattern, thanks to a sleep disorder.  If I try to alter it, I get really ill.   Living with chronic pain can bring about a malaise and depression that might seem odd to others, especially as the person looks normal.  The novel and movie discuss the family curse.  Well, this is a disease that afflicted my grandmother severely, one of my cousins and I detect signs of it in my niece.  I hope not.  We understand more about it now then we did in Poe's day, when people would rely on laudanum to cure their ills.  Products with codeine were fairly accessible and people weren't subjected to "the talk" and shipped off to the Betty Ford.  Ask a person with migraines if they've ever been tempted to reach for an easy out and they will tell you...yes.

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Anybody who feels physical discomfort on an ongoing basis views the world differently then a person who is free of pain.  I have to wonder if it influenced Poe's writing?   Did it make him more gifted, or would he have experienced more of the world had he not been ill?  Would he have been as interesting had he had not had such a maudlin view of life?  It's impossible to know, but I thought of it as I watched Vincent Price eat up the scenery.

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