Edgar Allan Poe is now known as one of the best detective story writers, as his writings convey the grotesque and arabesque better than any other person in the world. Many of his works include short stories and poems. His personal life was very tragic and very horrifying for even him to comprehend. Poe's mother died from tuberculosis, as well as his adopted mother and his wife. Everyone that was close to him seemed to die. To compensate for the deaths of the family he loved, Poe drank fiercely and often to get away from it all. Many of his stories are about death and blood because that is what he so intimately saw. Poe died in 1849 of an unknown cause, but his legendary stories still live on.
             Poe's characters vary from story to story. In "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Tell Tale Heart", and "Hop-Frog," the characters are all mentally tortured in some way, shape, or form. The Madman is tortured by the vulture eye, Montressor is tortured by Fortunato, and Hop-Frog is tortured by the King. All of the characters in these stories had reasons for the murder and they sought retribution for the people who harmed them. Hop-Frog was aided by an accomplice, while the other two characters were not. He also murdered multiple people for the retribution that he sought. Another difference in the characters was that the Madman and Montressor premeditated their murders before they killed the people. Secrecy was a part of the plan for the Madman and Montressor, but it was not in the plan for Hop-Frog. Out of all three characters, Hop- Frog was the most mentally tortured because he was madly humiliated everyday by the king. The Madman and Montressor each basically confessed from their point of view, and in "Hop-Frog" the narrator is not the killer, but tells the story. Poe created different view points for each of his stories.
             Like all authors Poe reveals clues in the beginning that ...