When to REALLY Teach Poe


Edgar Allan Poe is a renowned poet who keeps his audience wanting more for his dark and cryptic poetry. Yet, when should we teach the realistic Poe?  It was never clear on how racist Edgar Allan Poe, yet his writings in the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket shows many racist meanings. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is a tale that focus around Gordon Pym and his horrific experience on the sea. These experiences included shipwreck, cannibalism, and even conflicting with a different culture! The other culture deals with black people, yet Poe translates it to “savages”. This text surprised me! It seems like Poe is saying he feels like the world will be better if cultures do not interact with each other. The black individual, Nu-Nu, is terrified of the European culture. Not just the culture, but also their skin; white. Nu-Nu is so scared of the color white that it killed him. Nature pulls the cultures apart but we, Man, insist on exploring new cultures and oppressing.

How I interpreted it was Poe being a racist and saying we need to keep our culture to ourselves. I believe we can start teaching Poe in middle school and have it progress into high school. It is at high school when they should show texts, such as The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket as a controversial text. I believe it is important to shed light on literary authors before students get too involved in them. I believe if we do not do that then students will be very let down that their literary heroes were racist. Students should understand that people in Poe’s time were racist not just individually, but as a society as a whole. Racism was more of a “norm” in the day. We need to be wary; I interpreted as a racist text, if I do, then others will. 


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