Edgar Allen Poe

After finishing several Edgar Allen Poe stories I was left with a lot of unanswered questions. Why was it always about a man who would go mad? And then why did he result his madness in violence and slaughter? I knew a lot of things about Poe due to my gruesome fascination with him since the age of six but to me Poe's greatest mystery remains himself. In one story he writes of a man who looses his mind  and kills an old man with the defense that the old man's eye was haunting him, and then hides the body in the floor of the old man's home. And in another story he writes of a younger man who takes in a black cat, and in a violence rage blinds the cat in one eye. Later the man again believes the eye is haunting him and kills the cat and hides it in the basement walls. My first thought was "whats this guys deal with eyes?" and "why does he kill things and bury the bodies in houses? whats wrong with a with like not burying bodies in your house? Does he want to be haunted or something?". But then I began to see the reoccurring situations in these two stories: the eyes, the madness, the murder and then the covering of the murders. What was the significance of these things? What message was Poe trying to get across to the reader? Poe once said "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity," was his writing his way of expresses his madness with no physical violence? Was he voicing his own life experiences through reoccurring things in his story? But if it was madness he wanted to seek out why didn't he just look into his own life. I mean he married his 12 year old first cousin when he was 24. Is that not creepy enough for him? And those weren't the only abnormal aspects in his life there were so. Many. More. In Poe's journey to make and create mysteries the greatest mystery he made was himself.

Love Makes Us Liars

Have you ever lied about how you felt about someone, whether to protect yourself or someone else? Or have you ever lied to someone you love to protect yourself or someone else? We all tell lies, whether big, detrimental, ones or small little ones, honest motives or not, we still lie for and to the people we love. You could even say love is what makes people, good or bad, whether a liar already or not, tell lies.

In the "Mortal Instruments" by Cassandra Clare 16-year-old protagonist, Clary Fray, finds out she is really, Clary Morgenstern, a Nephilim. Throughout the series Clary is trying to find out who she is and who her family is. Along her journey there is lots of love and different relationships, all having there own struggles and hurdles; often involving lies.

For example, in this series Clary's mother, Jocelyn never told Clary they were Nephilim/part angel, and never acknowledged that world at all, constantly lying to Clary and shielding her from the truth. Jocelyn claims to have done out of love to protect Clary from a world of violence, death and pain that Jocelyn had experienced. She made a choice for who Clary is and who she would be without telling Clary she had a choice of who she was and could be. She indeed shielded Clary and had her eyes closed to that side of her she could not close the eyes of that world, which later resulted in Clary being exposed, and alone, in a foreign world, with nothing and no one to give her answers. Not knowing who she could trust to tell her the truth after what she saw as her mothers betrayal, missing a woman who she felt she no longer knew. While this was a act of love by Jocelyn, she lied to Clary, a young girl, betraying the innocent trust she had in her mother, leaving behind resentment where there had once only been love.

Also, when Clary was thrust into this world of shadow-hunters, she met and fell in love with Jace, a Nephilim boy who later turned out to be her biological brother, another piece of the life Jocelyn had run from. Clary no longer had any hope of being with Jace and had to hide her feelings away, never telling anyone how she felt, and no longer able to act upon her feelings. In the midst of covering her feelings for her older brother she tried to go out with Simon, an old mundane/human friend who had always had feelings for her. Not only did she lie and say and act as if she never had or has feelings for Jace, but she also tried to lie to herself and make herself love Simon. In some ways lying about not having feelings for someone just for the look of it is really just us lying to ourselves, by trying to tell ourselves that this is the truth.

In addition, in this book a Nephilim friend of Jace, Alec, lies about his love life constantly. While the Nephilim are not bias towards race, and gender they are extremely old fashioned, resulting in Alec not being able to come out with his sexuality due to his fear of exclusion from the government and his family. He confided in no one and never told anyone his secret. He even kept him self from any potential relationships due to his fear of acknowledging his sexuality, and made himself love Jace, his adopted brother, because he knew that there was no possible way he could be in a relationship with him, without breaking the law. While he's lying to everyone he also lies to himself and convinces him self he will never have feelings for any one ever while he was never even in love with him.

Lastly Luke, a father figure of Clary's and Jocelyn's old friend lies about his love for Jocelyn for twenty years in order to preserve his own feelings and their friendship. When Jocelyn first married Valentine Morgenstern, he never told her that he too had feelings for her because he was friends with both of them and was petrified with the idea of losing either of them if things ended badly for him. Later when Jocelyn ran from her old life, he joined her and said he would marry her, but she only dismissed it as him pitying her, for she was pregnant with Clary so Luke never mentioned his feelings again and acted as if he never had feelings for her and even went back home without her while she sought refuge in New York. But again, later his fear of her not in his life at all resulted in him going to find her and staying with her, even though they were only friends and that was all they ever were. He lied to everyone about his feelings out of the fear of rejection and ruining any relationship, even friendship between him and Jocelyn. Any love from her was enough for him, even if he had to lie and say it was enough.

Love while has the reputation of bringing out the best in us; sometimes it can bring out the worst parts of us. Lying to who we love in order to protect them but then distancing them from us because of the lies we tell for and to them. Lying about who we love to everyone and ourselves in the fear or rejection and heartbreak, willing to do anything for them except tell them the truth because they alone hold the power to hurt us worse then any other person. While love is something that can make us stronger it is also the thing that weakens us. While love seems the most powerful of feelings it also makes it the most dangerous and terrifying leaving us stripped and bare with only our feelings for someone left behind. Love gives us the power to blindly tell the truth to who we love but also the power to lie blindly for and to who we love. It's love that makes us liars in the end.

Blood Isn't Love

""Blood isn't love," said Magnus, and his voice was bitter. "Just ask Clary"". This is a constant idea portrayed in "The City of Ashes". That blood doesn't strengthen love, nor does it create love, shown in many parts of the book and through characters.

In the book, "The City of Ashes" by Cassandra Clare, the protagonist of this series, 16-year-old Clary Fray, discovers she is secretly part of the shadow-hunter community; a race of underground demon hunters. Throughout the series, Clary struggles to define who she is and where and who she fits in with in her new life, and who her family is in the literal and metaphoric way. She learns she has a father and a brother in this new life that her mother left behind in order to safely raise Clary as a mundane/human, free of violence and death. But Clary feels no blood relation to either of them, and is actually disgusted by her family situation, not wanting to share blood with either of them.

Throughout the series Clary learns that blood and your relation to someone isn't love, but your actual feelings and that person internally is what makes it real.

In this book, Clary learns her biological father, Valentine Morgernstern, is trying to undermine the shadow-hunter authorities, the Clave at what ever means necessary, even murder. In "The City of Ashes", when Clary alone is first confronted by her father, he says to her: "But isn't that what love is Clarissa?...Ownership?” meaning that love comes with connection, blood connection. When someone is your mother, your father or your child, and to love is to own, in his eyes that's what love is. Ownership. Clarys' response is "No...I don't think you get it...it's not just that someone belongs to you, it's that you give yourself to someone...". Clary sees and understands that just because someone is yours, does not necessarily mean you own, or love them. It's a matter of if you gave yourself to them and they gave themself to you. What made Clary able to fight Valentine was her strong belief that what he was doing was wrong, so biological father or not, she had no inclination or reason to be attached to someone who had never before been in her life. This is an important message for teens to be exposed to because it teaches readers that love isn't something that is chosen or defined for you, but is something you choose and define for yourself, whether you love your blood or not, but also teaches readers that not loving your blood is okay, because love is something that you earn not something that is given to you by association.

In addition, when Clary first met Jace Wayland, a closed off and traumatized shadow-hunter boy, they fell head over heels in love. Jace who had been raised to think that loving was a weakness, something that would mean destroying or to be destroyed, had met someone who taught him love made you stronger and not weaker. But there was one small problem with their happy ending. Clary and Jace were actually biological siblings. Although Clary knew they no longer had any potential future or relationship together, her feelings did not waver, nor did they switch to one of sibling affection. She could not share or act upon her feelings but she never actually tried to diffuse her feelings, only satisfied herself by being in his presence and life, even as a sister. As said in the book, "...desire is not always lessened by disgust...". Clary knows her family and friends would be disgusted if she and Jace were together, but she never tries to stop the way she feels because she know her love for Jace isn't disgusting. She can't see Jace as a brother the way she could never see Valentine as her father. Clary teaches us that regardless of whom you love, you should never dismiss how you really feel about someone.

Lastly, the way Clary chose to love Luke as a father figure teaches readers that blood isn't love. Although Luke was just an old friend from Clarys' mothers' past shadow-hunter life, he was the man who Clary loved and was loved by and admired. As said in the book, it was Luke who was snapping away with picture at her graduation, and pushing her on the swings and teaching her how to swim. Clary, was brought up thinking her biological mundane, father had died, felt no real emotional attachment to her father because she never knew him and never deluded herself into feeling the loss of a stranger when she had always had a dad -Luke- so why should she cry over a stranger she just calls dad?

With this book Cassandra Clare efficiently uses Clary to teach young adult readers that blood and family do not define love, but how you really feel about someone. Love is not something that should be stopped or limited but something that is limitless with no real definition, that is honest and real. This is something important for adolescents to be exposed to because it teaches them to not waste their time or affection on someone that isn't worth it just because their your dad or mom or your sibling, but to only give your affection to someone worthy of you and your feelings. Love shouldn't be given to someone just because their there but because your actual feelings for them.