For nearly as long as the human race has existed, people have been fascinated by the notion of prolonging life.  The first ever written text, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is about a king who searches for a plant that will help him gain eternal life (SparkNotes Editors).  Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi of the Qin dynasty of China desperately sought the Elixir of Life, potion which would grant him immortality (Encyclopedia Britannica).  During the late 1800s, people were investigating the process of mesmerism, which they believed might hold the secrets of a longer life span (Winter, 112).  Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most popular horror writers of this time period.  One of his stories, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, tells the frightening tale of an experiment in which a doctor manages to place a man named M. Valdemar under hypnotic suggestion right at the point of Valdemar's death, effectively arresting the process of normal death.  Written like an article from a medical journal, this story reads like fact, probably confusing many readers of the time period.  The ample usage of gruesome imagery in this story helps to set a tone of horror and foreboding.  Not only that, but in the end the experiment failed at keeping Valdemar "alive" for more than seven agonizing months.  The way these facts work together upon the reader: the factual presentation of the data making the reader more prone to believe that the experiment actually happened, the tone set in such a way that the reader is filled with fear, and the apparent failure of the experiment all lead one to believe that a possible interpretation of this story is that mesmerism is not the key to immortality. 

One of the more striking things about The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar is the level of believability there is in such an unbelievable story.  The "official" nature of the story is one way the reader will be more convinced to take the point of the story more seriously.  For instance, Poe begins his story by saying "I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion.  It would have been a miracle had it not   especially under the circumstances".  This quote makes the reader think that the case of M. Valdemar is practically common knowledge and even that everyone should know something about it before hand.  (Poe, 22).  Written in a very clinical manner, this story reads as if it were a medical treatise instead of a short story.  Leaving out the names of all parties except the deceased subject to protect the identities of those involved and paying close attention to minute details are two ways in which this story compares to a medical journal.  In the following quote, "Mr. L l was so kind as to accede to my desire that he would take notes of all that occurred; and it is from his memoranda that what I now have to relate is, for the most part, either condensed or copied verbatim", one can see that the remainder of the story after that quote is (supposedly) taken directly from somebody's lab notes (Poe, 25).  In addition to that, P-- (the narrator) even admits himself that "I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative at which every reader will be startled into positive disbelief.  It is my business, however, simply to proceed" (Poe, 27).  He obviously knew that people would be skeptical.  However, by admitting this fact, P-- sows a grain of doubt into the skepticism.  Because of the rather official nature of this story, the reader is rendered far more likely to believe whatever is presented as fact, which in this case is that the theory that mesmerism as a possible road to immortality is faulty at best.

Calculated in such a way as to leave the reader with a slight feeling of revulsion, the tone of this story is used to further discredit the theory of mesmerism.  Not for nothing is Poe considered one of the most popular horror writers of the 1800's.  Throughout The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, ghastly descriptions abound.  Even before his death, Valdemar is described as "[having] a leaden hue; the eyes were utterly lusterless; and the emaciation was so extreme, that the skin had been broken through by the cheek-bones" (Poe, 24).  After he dies, it gets worse; the skin "assumed a cadaverous hue" and the tongue of his gaping mouth was "swollen and blackened," a sight so disgusting that everyone present "shrunk back from the region of the bed" (Poe, 27).  As the narrator attempts to talk to the mesmerized (and dead) Valdemar, the voice that issues from his mouth is said to be "harsh, and broken and hollow; but the hideous whole is indescribable, for the simple reason that no similar sounds have ever jarred upon the ear of humanity" (Poe, 27).  Though there are many more of the like, arguably the most gory and gristly of them all is the final one in which, after P-- attempts to wake Valdemar, Valdemar "absolutely rotted away beneath my [P 's] hands.  Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome of detestable putrescence" (Poe, 29).  Certainly not at a loss for creepy and disgusting imagery, the use of these quotes is to leave people with a negative impression of mesmerism.  

The final nail driven into the proverbial coffin of hypnotically extending life is the fact that the whole process of mesmerizing Valdemar failed at achieving its intended goal.  Certainly, P  succeeds in mesmerizing Valdemar, but that accomplished little more than keeping Valdemar on this earth for seven months longer than need be.  Not only that, but the narrator also describes how "any attempt to draw blood failed", that the arms were "no longer subject to my [P 's] will", and that "the only real indication of the mesmeric influence, was now found in the vibratory movement of the tongue" (Poe, 28), all indicating the fact that Valdemar is basically unable to do anything, with the exception of repeating over and over again that he is dead.  If the point of the whole experiment was to discover whether or not life could be prolonged via mesmerizing the dying then it may or may not have succeeded, depending on your definition of "life".  Can one call Valdemar's torturous existence during these seven months "life"?  Even if one does, it is not a life worth living.  On all accounts, the experiment failed at achieving anything aside from seven months more torment for Valdemar. 

No matter which angle one takes to look at this story, Valdemar eventually died.  The experiment, real or not, failed in quite a gruesome manner.  However popular during that time period, the theory of mesmerism was horrifyingly flawed.  In the present day and age, it is an established fact that it is impossible to live forever.  Any person off the street knows that.  Yet, it was also impossible one hundred years ago to fly, and now a probe is on its way to Pluto.  Who is to say immortality is impossible?  Who is to say that eventually the Grim Reaper himself won't be conquered?  Even life's greatest secret regarding what happens after death may someday be solved.  

