The Conqueror Worm and the End of the World :: Conqueror Worm Essays

The Conqueror Worm and the End of the World Edgar Allen Poe is one of the fathers of scourge and mystery. His twisted, Macabre tales and poems are filled with great detail and often eradicate with a dismal twist. The Conqueror Worm is one example of his masterly rhymes and tells how a defend on life turns into reality for mankind. The setting is a theater but it is not just a site for plays. Poe describes it to be that way to trick the reader, but the theater is actually the setting for mankind. We play our lives in this stage for everyone else to affect. Lines three through six describe the press and how they are there to see a play of hopes and fears. If people would intuitive feeling beyond the point of reading the line just to understand the words, they would see that the play is actually the lives of everybody in society. I say this because everyone has their own hopes care getting a good job, succeeding, having a family and ultimately dieing happily. Along with their hopes, everyone alike has their personal fears. The characters of the poem are also some very significant keys in showing the hidden meaning. The first stanza describes the crowd that has gathered to discipline the enactment of our human lives. Lines three and four states an angel throng, bewinged, and bedight in veils, and drowned in tears. Poe is stating that a group of angels is going to watch the spectacle put on for them, although they are already drowning in the tears from plays before. The orchestra that plays for them is another set of characters that give birth meaning. They represent the background in everyones life by playing the practice of medicine of the spheres. A third set of characters that show hidden meaning is the Mimes, in the form of God on high. They denote the people that inhabit the earth. Poe describes them as Mere puppets they, who come and go at bidding of vast uncrystallized things. The vast formless things are the ideas that we have. Ideas like the things that we think we have to do for ourselves to survive and succeed. They also make up drama of the play. A final, orotund figure in this dramatic performance is the conqueror worm. Poe illustrates it as a blood-red thing.