The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe – Analysis

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Themes

  • Metaliterature
  • Appearance and reality
  • Establishing respectability
  • Establishing verity
  • Excitement and risk regarding the sea
  • Fear of the sea
  • Anti- alcohol?
  • Death wish
It might be supposed that a catastrophe such as I have just related would have effectually cooled my incipient passion for the sea. On the contrary, I never experienced a more ardent longing for the wild adventures incident to the life of a navigator than within a week after our miraculous deliverance.

·        Selective memory
This short period proved amply long enough to erase from my memory the shadows, and bring out in vivid light all the pleasurably exciting points of colour, all the picturesqueness of the late perilous accident.

·        Racism – the negro is particularly vicious
·        Close calls
had made a narrow escape indeed; for scarcely had he arranged all matters, when the mate came below, with Dirk Peters and the cook.

·        Journal form, which makes no sense since he wrote it in retrospect

Style and devices

  • Scientific, objective style
his conduct in bed had been the result of a highly-concentrated state of intoxication — a state which, like madness, frequently enables the victim to imitate the outward demeanour of one in perfect possession of his senses. The coolness of the night air, however, had had its usual effect — the mental energy began to yield before its influence
  • Absurd incidents – running into his grandfather and tricking him into thinking it's not him

Keywords

  • Boating terms
People and places

  • Arthur Gordon Pym
  • Nantucket
  • Edgarton New Bank
  • Mr. Ricketts
  • Mr. E Ronald
  • New Bedford
  • Augustus Barnard
  • Mr. Barnard – Augustus' father, a sea captain and Pym's schoolmate
  • Ariel
  • Lloyd and Vredenburgh
  • Messieurs Enderby
  • Grampus
  • Liverpool

Edgar Allan Poe

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