Poe's The Premature Burial
A Summary of Edgar Allan Poe’s Bait and Switch Short Story
Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Premature Burial sets up the expectation that the protagonist will suffer from a premature burial, however, Poe pulls a bait and switch in this short story.
Introduction
The speaker in The Premature Burial begins his account by telling us that certain ‘themes’ have universal appeal for readers but are not suitable for ‘legitimate fiction.” He argues that romantic writers must avoid these topics or risk offending or disgusting his audience. A writer can legitimately tackle these topics only if there is a fiber of truth to ‘sanctify and sustain’ them.
He provides examples of subjects that provide a universal thrill of ‘pleasurable pain.” His examples include disasters of traumatic proportions such as the Earthquake in Lisbon or the Plague of London. He states that it is the historicity of these stories that interests the reader and that as works of fiction they would be properly abhorred.
He admits that these stories fascinate because of the size of the disaster more than the character of it. He suggests that individual suffering touches on a more complete ‘essential suffering’ and that it is in the individual situation that the most terrible and extreme forms of suffering are endured.
To Be Buried While Alive
The writer argues that a living burial is the most terrible form of individual suffering. He suggests that premature burial occurs more frequently than we think because ‘the boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague.” He engages in a protracted description of the vagueness of the line between life and death. He then describes in detail many known examples of premature burial.
He includes the story of a Congressman’s wife who was believed dead. Three years later the family vault was opened. When the Congressman opened the door the skeleton of his wife fell into his arm. Investigation revealed that she revived after burial and managed to escape her coffin only to die at the door of the vault.
He provides a romantic example from France of a young woman who was courted by a man who was not suitable to her station in life. She chose to marry someone of her rank. After several years of unhappy marriage she died and was buried in a common plot in her birth village. Her lover shows his devotion by leaving Paris to travel to this small village intending to disinter her in order to cut a lock of her hair and then rebury her. However, she was not dead and his actions revived her.
The two fled to America to live. After twenty years, they felt sufficient time had passed for them to risk returning to France. When they returned, her first husband recognized her and tried to reclaim her. The courts supported them and the two were not separated.
The speaker also shares a story he found in the Chirurgical Journal of Leipsic. Another story he shares is of a young man who died of typhus. His friends decided to perform a secret autopsy only to discover that he was not dead.
A Personal and Positive Story
The speaker then shares his unique experience. He describes a disorder that he suffers, which he calls catalepsy. It causes him to go into a deep sleep or coma-like trance where his vital signs become weak and difficult to find. When he revives, he says that awareness of his situation and previous events are slow in returning to his consciousness. He states that otherwise, he is completely healthy.
However, the fear of premature burial overwhelms him and he begins to have nightmares about premature burial. He shares the details of one terrifying dream with his audience. These dreams overwhelm him and he begins to prepare for the event of interment while still living. He describes his actions to prepare his family vault for the possibility of accidental interment.
His vault is redesigned so that is possible to escape it when one is inside. It is modified to let in air and has a receptacle for food to sustain a person while inside. He creates a bell system so that a person inside his coffin can alert those outside the vault to the fact that someone lives within.
However, his precautions are not sufficient. He becomes so paranoid that he will no longer leave his house for fear of having a fit where someone who doesn’t know him might decide he has died and bury him. His fear intensifies and he soon begins to suspect the motives of those closest to him.
Finally, his terror is realized. He wakes in a dark enclosed space the size of a coffin and he realizes that his precautions have not succeeded. He begins to scream.
He is shaken until he comes to his senses at which time he realizes that he had chosen a small cramped berth on a boat and that he was not buried alive.
Freedom
The terror of his experience changes him. He decides to no longer live life in fear. As a result, his catalepsy disappeared and he realizes it was more a result of his fears than the cause of his fears. He concludes by stating that the demons that haunt our subconscious ought to be left untouched because if we waken them the will destroy us.
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