This thesis aims to analyze the following three themes; death and horror, death and dreams, love that transcends death in Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and poems.
Edgar Allan Poe's short stories reveal the dark side of the human mind that the author discovered in his own unhappy life. The horrors shown in his works are internal turmoil, death, unhappiness, and depression which a desperate man went through since his existence. Poe felt that he would be ruined by his degenerate life and worried that his ill wife might leave him. His psychological unstable mind represents the sense of fear in "The Black Cat" and "The Fall of the House of Usher". Poe used three ways to create an atmosphere of fear; "unclear horrors at unknown things", "horrors originated from supernatural features", and "horrors coming from the author's imagination. In "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven", he talks about his loved one's death. He insists that death cannot separate love and love exists forever beyond death in the poems.
Death is a reality that we cannot deny. Where there is life, there is always death. Death and life are like two sides of the same coin. In this thesis, we have shown that death can be considered inevitably as objects of harsh fear, but at the same time can be recognized as a means of going beyond life. We should accept the matter of life and death as it is.