Essay On Afterlife

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Immortality and the Afterlife The greatest fear is said to be the fear of the unknown. One of the greatest unknowns in the world is death. People have no ability to answer questions regarding what happens after death, because no one has ever experienced it. The afterlife is a common topic of fear and horror. Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft are excellent in their use of the afterlife as a tool to display horror. Edgar Allan Poe exhibits the afterlife through metempsychosis and hypnosis in his works “Ligeia” and “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”. Lovecraft graphically presents the afterlife through cannibalism and artwork respectively in his works “The Picture in the House” and “Pickman’s Model”. In the works of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, the afterlife is a horror used to exacerbate the fear of the unknown. …show more content…
In “The Picture in the House”, Lovecraft details how the man in the house is able to live forever. He writes “They say meat makes blood an’ flesh, an’ gives ye new life, so I wondered ef ‘twudn’t make a man live longer an’ longer ef ‘twas more the same- “(Lovecraft, The Picture in the House, 240). The man in the house is describing his theory that cannibalism would bring immortality. The most frightening part about this is him acting on it. Cannibalism is one of the most taboo things in society. Lovecraft defines just how scary these desires of action can be when he writes “All the terror I had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew that I loathed the ancient and abhorrent creature so near me with an infinite intensity” (Lovecraft, The Picture in the House, 245). The fear amassed from this text is not just that this man is a killer and a cannibal, but that he must continue feeding to stay immortal. As this man was described as being an old looking man, he must have eaten quite a few

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