Edgar Allan Poe is considered as the “Father of Detective Story”, his obsession for writing using common themes gives his readers an idea of what to expect while reading his literature.  It is known that when writing, authors will focus on areas that are of personal interest. Common themes used in Poe’s writing includes love v hate, alcoholism, life v death, man v self and obsession. These themes are present in Poe’s short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Black Cat”. Poe has lost some of the closest people in his life and this is portrayed in his works by focusing on the theme of death v life, in these short stories he shows that although you love someone death is inevitable. In the “The Masque of the Red Death”, he wrote “he had come like a thief in the night”, at this point of the story he was making reference to the red death. Just like his own life, Poe was not able to tell when these individuals would die although knowing that death would one day come. It may be assumed that he did not handle the death of his close family and friends well, hence, it affected him psychologically and this is portrayed in both “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat”. Just like the character in “The Black Cat”, Poe drowned himself in alcohol to avoid dealing with the issues that are present in his life; “I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all the memory of the deed”. When he drinks he is able to numb his feelings, hence, not having to deal with them. Even the idea of burying his guilt or conscience is evident when in “The Tell-Tale Heart” he buried the old man under the floor and in “The Black Cat” he buried his wife, after committing murder he hides the evidence which can be said that in his own life after being faced with something drastic instead of dealing with it he pushes it aside; by not dealing with the issue it then affects him psychologically.

In the both the “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death” Poe describes the narrator as being “sagacious” which is ironic because both these individuals did not make good decisions in the situations presented to them. He used these narrators to justify his own life, thinking that he makes the best decisions however the outcome shows otherwise (being an alcoholic).