The mental state of Poe affects his writing, and it appears in all of his literary work. The first is lost loves, the second is alcoholism. Edgar A. Poe has many lost loves in his life. He lost his mother at almost age three, his foster mother while he was in his teens, his friend's mother, whom he loved like his own mother. Poe also has a problem with alcoholism, he is allergic to alcohol and knows that if he drinks, he will become very sick, and sometimes even put himself in a coma state. The fear of being in a coma springs from the fear of being buried a live; some people at the time are buried a live because they are in comas, but everyone think they are already dead. Both the title and the plot of his 1844 story"The Premature Burial" illustrate this fear of his, alcohol destroys his life and his mind but eventhough he continues to drink.
Although these direct ties can alone prove that Poe's life is reflected in his works, more evidence is provided about his life in his stories. He thoroughly incorporates psychology into many of his stories, which he knows a great deal of. He uses personal fears in his stories, along with characteristics of his surroundings. Even though there are many a correlation more than are stated here, the connections provide here suggest that Poe's writing are an outlet and an extension for his life. Poe's mother died of consumption when he was three and Bonaparte's mother died of a pulmonary embolism when she was only two months old. This similarity was to play a role in the enthusiasm Marie Bonaparte put into her analysis of Poe's work. There is also a common theme of beautiful young women dying in Poe's works. In stories and poems of Poe, a young, innocent woman, full of life, dies in a strange and horrible way. The cause of death is generally unusual and different. There is a direct connection to Poe's life in this theme. Again, this going back to the note that he loved his foster mother and wife dearly, and they passed on before him. Virginia, Poe's wife, was very pretty and died at a young age, just like the characters in many of Poe's stories. Yet, another reference in Poe's stories to his life is alcohol. Towards the end of his days, Poe began to spiral into depression and madness.
Since personal tragedy is recurring theme in Edgar A. Poe's life, his work reflects the darkness instills by such continuous sorrow. Poe even acknowledged this in his famous work alone: " From childhood's hour, i have not been as others were; i have not seen as others saw; i could not bring my passions from a common spring"(Howarth,P390) Unfortunately, many of the most important people in his life were most influential due to their deaths. For example, in the "Tell Tale Heart" the eye of an old man is observing and watching, Bonaparte says that the eye refers to his foster father, there is an obvious death wish in many of the stories of Poe directed against a man, In" The Tell Tale Heart" it is against an old man, whose murder he accomplishes; not satisified with this he cuts off the limbs. He commences the story in an extenuating tone, but objects to being called mad."True-nervous-very,very, dreadfullynervous i had been and am; but why will you say that i am mad?". This detailed setting forth of lack of reason for a murder indicates in the writer a defense mechanism against the unconscious wishes. There is one man for whose murder all such reasons would apply: the foster father, Mr. Allan. There had never been love or understanding between the two. I think sometimes that the "evil eye" in this story refers not only for his foster father, but also is the disease which took all of his love ones. He tries to get rid of this eye to rid of the pain and the sorrow in his life.
So as i mentioned before Poe suffers from mental illness, and it shows in all of his literary work, in the "Tell Tale Heart" the unknown narrator who insists he is sane but suffers from a disease(nervousness) which causes "over-acutness of the senses": The old man with "evil" eye which i think he refers to an "evil eye" to resulting from his antagonistic relationship with his foster father.
In "Ligeia" the gothic and romantic ideal of female beauty is that of a pale and striking but delicate figure, a description that often corresponds with effects of tuberculosis or other extended sickness, the death is an element you can find it in all of his literary work wether if death of beautiful women or revenge. so death theme is found in his madness, and his madness is in his unconscioussness mind. One example of the idea by which he is haunted through his life: that the dead are not wholly dead to consciousness. This is repeated many times in his writings, in the "Premature Burial" the pattern of death is repeated, and fear of buried a live, it comes also from his own fear of returning his dead mother to life for revenge. Also the attempts suicide from Laudanum in Boston is only one evidence of the profound state of melancholia into which he has sunk. His physique deteriorated, and suffering from congestion of the brain, he should have been in a sanitarium instead of struggling about the country in the miserable hope of founding his magazine. That diseased brain which had supplied his writings with all its morbid, beautiful imagery and haunting melodies of death. Insanity begins, under the depression of melancholia and delusions of inflammation of his congestion.
Poe's heroes are melancholy men, insane from sorrow or from the thirst for revenge, in the study of his own diseased thought he is distinctly psychological. He writes: "... what the world calls 'genius' is the state of mental disease arising from the undue prominence of someone of the faculties. The works of such genius are never sound in themselves, and, in special, always betray the general mental insanity."
In short, Poe's life is rather awful, and it is apparent in many of his stories and poems that the events in his past had a huge impact on his writing. In fact, if life hasn't been so cruel to him, Poe may have not written his classic tales we have come to know and love.
The referential function is oriented towards the context, Of course, the referential function plays an important role in a lot of literary texts; it is, however, subordinate to the poetic function.
Jakobson says that the context is what is known as the "referent" in another, some what ambiguous. Amazingly, this does not stop him from using the term"referential" for the function whose target factor is the context. Most of referential functions arebfound in the character's overstatement since it is dramatically mor descriptive.
Fodor argues that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a casual, externally determind aspect, he has in recent years devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. Also Aristotle says in the philosophy of mind is the belief that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part.
So the mental state is a collection of thoughts or a private language undermines the idea that our thoughts provide our words with meanings, in other words, the idea that in the mental state uses language to convey thoughts into a context the "referent".
Putnam says how every narrator in Poe's stories is a reflection of Poe himself, and how each narrator suffers from some illness, whether in the mind or physical disease. For example, in "The Tell Tale Heart", the narrator deranged person who tries to convince the reader that he is sane. Another example, in "The Premature Burial" the narrator suffers from catalepsy, lives in abnormal fear that he will be pronounced dead during a cataleptic trance and buried alive. This example shows how much the narrator like Poe's character, fears from death and being buried alive. Poe's stories and narrators are reflection of Poe's mental state and his life.