When reading pieces by Edgar Allan Poe, we cannot help but realize the horrible, gruesome style that the passages are written in. The style will either intrigue the reader to deeply look into his works or send the reader's attention to another less disturbing style or writing. In "The Facts in the Case of M. Valedemar", the controversial topic of placing a human into a deep state of hypnosis at the point of death assents with the typical style of writing that he applies to his stories. By inserting gruesome examples of appearance, dialog, and also specific diction regarding to the actions of the characters in the controversial stories, Poe theme of the brutal consequences of cheating death across to us readers.

Immediately in the story we are enticed by Poe by the words "excited discussion" and "miracle". It gets us thinking about what it is that the story is going to be about and how it will be told to us. A miracle is something that is thought of as impossible to have happened, which means to us that we have something to look forward to. A few lines down Poe tells us that there are a bunch of jumbles and exaggerated misinterpretations about the story, but backs it by letting us know that we are receiving the facts about it interpreted by himself. Although Poe tells us that we are being told the truth, we are not presented with any evidence to be able to validate the story that being given to us. Another word that comes up a few times is "arrested" and it is combined with the idea of death. M. Valdemar is being "arrested" in a state of meditation or a trance as he passes away, which emphasizes how he is trapped before something that we all fear and will experience. At the end of the story while he is clearly dead, but still in the trance, M. Valdemar, when asked a question, replies, "For God's sake! quick! quick! put me to sleep or, quick! waken me! quick! I say to you that I am dead!" (Poe 29). Now it is easy for the reader to see how he is "arrested" in this state, clearly experiencing some kind of pain or suffering. Here is where Poe expresses his theme since a divine force is implementing suffering upon the dead man, therefore warning the doctors about how morally wrong this experiment is.  The word used multiple times, "quick", puts emphasis on how badly he wants to get out of this troubled trance at the time of death. A great deal of pain must be being endured at the moment for such a rush to be present. This is just a smidgen of the use of words adopted by Poe to highlight points in his story.

Another interesting thing that adds to the story is the confidentiality when it comes to disclosing the names of the numerous doctors. As an example, Poe writes, "Doctors D---- and F---- called," (Poe 25). It is difficult to tell why he does this, but it is obviously done to give us yet another thing to discuss. One possibility could be that the people wanted to keep quiet about who was involved because it is such a controversial topic that could've resulted in punishment if their names leaked out. Two words that also came up relating to the medical field and they were "clairvoyance" and "phthisis" that are not commonly known by the everyday person but can be simply explained with the synonyms telepathy and tuberculosis. Detail in descriptions of the characters' physical appearances is yet another famous trait that Poe utilizes in his writing. As he describes the living man's body, every single part of the body is vividly described, head to toe, allowing the reader to put themselves in the doctor's shoes. We are able to visualize ourselves looking down upon the patient, or in this case the experiment, laying on the hospital bed. As some time passes in the short story, it eventually jumps into the moment before M. Valdemar dies and has been put into the trance. Just as this is happening Poe states, "The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a cadaverous hue, resembling not so much parchment as white paper," (Poe 26-27). This leaves us with a morbid image of a person looking similar to the commonly known creature in Frankenstein. Poe is again using his gruesome magic to draw our attention and keep reading the story. Lastly, at the very end of the short story this is what is stated, "Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome  of detestable putrescence," (Poe 29). With that being said, we all look at the end of the passage gawking like we are starring at a brutal car accident, such as a car on fire towards the side of the road followed by ambulances. As a punishment for the doctors' unmoral actions, the divine force causes this repugnant sight, which will be remembered for the rest of their lives, to ensure that they will never practice such an experiment in the rest of their lifetimes. 

With all of that being said, Edgar Allan Poe clearly does an outstanding job of getting his theme of playing a divine force, such as God, by attempting to cheat the termination that we have no control of, across to us with his gothic style of writing. The extraordinary amount of detail in description grasps our attention to continue reading the disgusting, but amazingly interesting stories. By looking at these stories in an abstract way, not just reading through the words to finish the story for entertainment, makes them much more interesting and also much easier to learn something from. With the controversial and gruesome topics that can be discussed in an academic setting, it is not a surprise that Poe has become such a famous author even though he has passed away a long time ago. If Poe was looking to become remembered for his writing, that goal was accomplished and he is now referred to as the king of short stories.

