I will never forget the first time I read Poe. I was in middle school and we read The Tell-Tale Heart. I remember the teacher really built the guy up. She said his works were gruesome and horrifying! I remember being so excited about that. Like, thinking in my head that this story was going to be like the Saw series of movies, and boy was I dissapointed... I read the first page and felt completely lost! I mean, who was this guy? What was he talking about? I didn't understand a word of it and I really think that killed my love of Poe before it ever really started. Of course, this could have been a result of desensitization, as I distinctly remember that I played DOOM for the first time and I found that scary-as-all-get-out. But Poe? He didn't even register on my scare scale.
I bring this all up, because I think it says something about the human condition and what we find scary and how we, as teachers, can make Poe scary and worth reading again. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the act of cutting up a body and hiding it under floorboards just isn't scary anymore. In a world where physical violence is the norm in almost all forms of entertainment, we can't expect our students to find this horrifying anymore. They have had much worse than that described to them and have seen people ripped to shreds in stunning 1080P resolution. Many of them play video games themselves and are directly responsible for the death of their in-game characters. Subconciously, that has done something to them. Without even realizing it, they're thinking "you cut a body into pieces and hid it? So what? In Mortal Kombat 10 I shoved a man's arms into his body and proceeded to rip his head open at the jaw, and use his tongue for an ash tray". How do we make Poe scary again in a world where what I just described is literally what these students are doing as a means of entertainment in a video game? I don't have an answer, but I think it involves doing something about what we perceive as scary and what is actually scary. For instance, the scene in described above is seen by a majority of people as gruesome, but in no way scary. Most people laugh when they see it, as a matter of fact. So, instead of focusing on the physical violence, why not focus on the psychological horror that is also prevalent throughout the story? I mean, is this guy in The Tell-Tale Heart really crazy? What made him act that way? Did he have a choice? If we can somehow focus on the idea that this man is defenseless against his own insanity, we might have a better chance of returning Poe to his former glory. Or at least, get him off of the "I'm never reading this again" list that students seem to have.
