Edgar Allen Poe was a short story and poem writer in the mid 1800’s best known for writing stories involving horror and mystery. Poe knew that in his age many people were not well educated, and he took advantage of this in his writing to make his work even more frightening to the under educated people of society by mixing fact and fiction in his writing. In Poe’s work “The Facts of the Case of M. Valdemar” Poe writes about a man by the name of M. Valdemar that is dying of tuberculosis, and how he agrees to be mesmerized by a character known as P.  P. had attempted to mesmerize Valdermar previously with no success; however, this time the mesmerizaation, at the time of Valdemar’s impending death, is successful and the events as described by Poe that follow are terrifying. The following passage on page 68 in the second paragraph of “The Carolina Reader” exemplifies Poe’s intent to create fear and disturb those in society when the short story was published. The passage illustrates Poe’s attempt to frighten his readers while using the term mesmerization along with medical terms he uses in the story to create an eerie mood because of his mix of facts and fiction. Each element is used prominently throughout the work, but the medical terms are used significantly in the passage while P. is explaining Valdemar’s condition, which gives credibility to the narrator. Poe’s word choice of mesmerization and medical terminology along with the descriptive imagery of Valdemar’s condition creates a sense of horror, leading readers to questions whether the story is documenting real events.

The word choice of Poe is specific and it leads to amplifying the horror of the short story; throughout the work Poe is constantly using the word mesmerization. Society during the time of Poe believed in mesmerization and many feared it; however, other words such as hypnosis or trance bring about a less serious connotation which is why Poe chose not to use those words. Hypnosis and trance bring with them a less horrifying connotation and even a funny connotation, because they usually had to deal with performances or acts causing people to do silly things that people knew were fake. Mesmerization, however, was a concerning topic and it frightened many people because it seemed to involve medical treatments of some kind, and as such the fact that Poe specifically chose the word would have made readers fearful. The reoccurring theme of mesmerism struck fear in the readers and made them believe it could happen to any one of them. As the story progresses, the fear in readers and the usage of medical terms also helped to make the fictional story more believable and more disturbing.

In the time of Poe many were uneducated, and Poe knew this and took advantage of this fact.  While he never attended medical school, Poe was well educated, literate and used his knowledge and resources so that he could include many medical terms in the short story. The medical terms heightened the level of fear in the readers because using actual medical terms caused readers to believe the story was fact. Interestingly, Poe uses the most medical terms in the paragraph before Valdemar is hypnotized, while P. is describing his deteriorating condition.  While describing Valdemar’s condition, P. uses words such as ossified, purulent tubercles, perforations, and phthisis. The meaning of the words is not necessarily important, but rather the fact that people of Poe’s time would have known only a highly educated person would use such complex words and use them truthfully.  P. then describes Valdemar’s lungs as “semi-osseous or cartilaginous state” (Poe 68) and also explained that it is likely Valdermar had an “aneurism of the aorta” -- all words used to describe Valdemar’s decaying state which would have been foreign to almost everyone in society at the time.  The use of these complex medical terms made the story seem as if it were a medical document rather than a fictional story. Poe took advantage of the citizen’s lack of education to and the story became   absolutely horrifying because the use of the medical terms gave credibility to the fiction creating doubt and fear. 

Throughout the story Poe also used specific words and created great imagery from the word choice which also sets fear in many readers. Imagery, unlike word choice would leave the reader with a vision they would fear instead of a thought or concept, and for people of the time and people today would be absolutely horrifying. Throughout the story Poe does a [better word here] job creating imagery especially when describing the decaying condition of Valdemar. For instance, when describing Valdemar’s physique, he explains “his lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph [who is this/ do you need to explain?]  and, also for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the blackness of his hair-the latter, in consequence being very generally mistaken for a wig” (67). Then Poe moves onto describe Valdemar while he is mesmerized exclaiming P. “felt the limbs and found them rigid as ever. The right arm, as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the sleep-waker again…” (70). This quote gives the reader and image of Valdemar’s decaying state and also creates fear because P. explains that Valdemar is obeying his commands while under the mesmerization creating the imagery that the mesmerization worked. At the end of the short story, as it was apparent Valdemar’s condition and body had extremely decayed, P. attempted to awaken Valdemar, Poe wrote: “Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome-of detestable putrescence.” (Poe 72). Throughout the short story Poe uses imagery to frighten readers, by showing describing in detail through medical terms his decaying condition and creating great imagery when showing the fact that Valdemar was mesmerized.

While Poe’s story is still creepy and eerie to society today, it would have been exponentially more terrifying to people of Poe’s time. Poe preyed upon the fact that people in his time were uneducated, and he used this to make his fictional short story be seen as documenting a medical event. The usage of the word mesmerization instead of other words with similar meaning is key to the horrifying mood of the story while other words with similar meaning bring about a less serious connotation. Mesmerization causes the readers of the time to fear they could be subject to the same thing, and the reader believed mesmerization is almost mentioned in the same way the medical terms are being used, which may have caused people to take the concept of mesmerization as a type of medical treatment. Imagery is used throughout the story to show the effects of the mesemerization of Valdemar and explicitly explain the decaying state of Valdemar which strikes fear in the readers. Mesmerization brings about a serious theme to the story, along with the medical terms, as well as the vivid imagery which reinforce the credibility of Poe, causing readers to view the story as fact instead of a fiction 
