In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, the larger message of death being inevitable is shown through a buildup of suspense leading to the end of the story. When Poe wrote this short story, one of the current fads of the time period was the topic of mesmerism. The narrator, who mysteriously, only has one letter for a name, has been interested in mesmerism and mesmerizing people for many years. However, he has never put someone in a mesmeric trance when they were in the grave process of dying; trying to see if a mesmeric trance would further extend life and prevent death. M. Valdemar is an old man who knows he is going to die and makes an agreement to send for P, the narrator, when his death is forecast within the next twenty-four hours. Valdemar is anxious for P to conduct his mesmeric experiment as he dies, showing that Valdemar is afraid of death. The reader can see death is an inevitable end product of every life through vivid imagery that creates a picturesque image of death at its foulest point and through Poe’s word choice that flows together to articulate the ghastly outcome of death. By showing that a mesmeric trance can keep a dead man alive in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, Poe illustrates that imaginative imagery and eloquent word choice converge to strengthen the larger message of the inevitability of death. 

Imagery connects and strengthens the larger message of the inevitability of death in multiple instances and situations throughout the short story. It is first shown when P hears the news that Valdemar is going to pass away and he then speeds to the hospital to try and perform his experiment. As P walks into the hospital, Valdemar is still alive.  P examines Valdemar’s condition and states, “I had not seen him for ten days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore 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 68). P is stating that it is clear that Valdemar’s death is in the near future, and he looks appalling and ill on his death bed. The reader of the passage can picture the deteriorating physical condition that has fallen upon Valdemar because of the effective imagery. Imagery that Poe uses with vivid detail shows that even in ten days Valdemar’s condition has worsened and his outward and physical appearance display that he is an utterly helpless man that is on the brink of death. Death is inevitable to everyone, and the physical condition of Valdemar demonstrates that his time has come. As he approaches the tragic end to a remarkable life, the narrator continues to put him farther into a mesmeric trance. P and Valdemar still converse through the dying tongue of the old man until there is no sign of life. The doctors could prick no blood from his stiff and icy veins. After seven months in a mesmeric trance, P and the doctors decided it would be best to try and wake Valdemar. P starts to release the trance and the horror is intensified. Trying to lift the trance, P states, “…within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk-crumbled-absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome – of detestable putrescence” (Poe 73). Poe uses imagery again to connect with the reader and show the inevitability of death. The reader forms a horrifying image of a man rotting into nothing on a hospital bed through descriptive imagery. At the beginning of the passage the reader sees how desperate Valdemar is to live, and from this quote, imagery illustrates that if Valdemar could have accepted his natural death, it most likely would have been less horrid and gruesome. No matter how hard one tries to escape the fate of death, it is always inevitable, which is seen through the detailed images that are instilled in the readers mind through imagery. 

Word choice is another element that strengthens the larger message as whole by using words in a certain order that relay something specific. As Valdemar agrees to be put into a mesmeric trance, P describes the process which occurs, “He still professed himself quite willing and even anxious to have it made, and urged me to commence it at once” (Poe 68). The word choice here is very specific which illustrates that Valdemar is quite willing and anxious to be put into a mesmeric trance. This word choice also points to the fact that Valdemar is petrified to die. Because he is not very hesitant to be put into the trance, it shows that he is willing to do anything to save himself from dying. Valdemar does not want to accept the fact that his time has come and death is inevitable. Although throughout the story we see that Valdemar is physically dead, the mesmeric trance technically keeps him alive in spirit because he can still talk through the faint vibrations of his tongue. Valdemar is in a semi-alive but dead state when he responds back to P through his tongue and says, “‘Yes; - no; - I have been sleeping – and now – now – I am dead”’ (Poe 71). The word choice here specifically shows that Valdemar is physically dead, yet through the mesmeric trance he is still able to respond to P. Even while being able to respond and talk a little amount, death is still in the end inevitable when the mesmeric trance is lifted. Word choice demonstrates that Valdemar’s worst fears have been realized and his death is unfortunately inevitable.

With descriptive imagery that puts an image into the reader’s head and specific word choice that demonstrates the larger message of the inevitability of death, we see that even if a mesmeric trance can keep a man talking, death is still inevitable. Mesmerism was a topic of interest for the audience of Poe’s The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, which through his work, Poe uncovered the message that mesmerism cannot stop people from dying, nothing can. Eventually everyone will die no matter what procedures are done or mesmeric trances one is in, death is inevitable. Poe writes a fictional story to allow the reader to decode the message that death is inevitable through multiple layers of imagery and word choice. 
