Imp of Perverse

I am working on an article for my work's staff newsletter about Edgar Allan Poe. The article is about Poe not because of his horror stories which would be appropriate for the the month of October and Halloween but because someone somewhere decided that October is Mystery Series Month. And Poe was the first to write a series of stories using the same detective--M. C. Auguste Dupin.

Yep, Poe really was quite an extraordinary and talented fellow if not also very troubled and unlucky and just plain unfortunate. I understand the latest theory about his death is that he was used by a group of men who went recruiting voters, taking them from polling places to polling places to vote again and again, for their candidates and getting them drunker and drunker along the way. Poe was already sick and was left abandoned in the street, passed out and with possible alcohol poisoning, and simply died in the gutter.

I first learned of Poe's detective stories, or tales of ratiocination, in a detective fiction class at the community college where I work. We read the three stories: "The Murders on the Rue Morgue," "The Purloined Letter," and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and it was quite plain to see that a famous English author based his own rather eccentric detective named Holmes off of Dupin. No doubt many people thing of Sherlock Holmes as the first literary detective simply because there were many more stories and books written about him but Poe was the first.

But I found the tales of ratiocination in a volume I recently purchased called The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. I bought it because a poet friend who has been compiling an online library of poetry and fiction recently included some of Poe's work and I wanted more. I wanted to reread some of the horror stories and look at some of the poems.

While reading the introduction by Wilbur Scott, I came across a story called "The Imp of Perverse." I read his discussion of it before I read the story which at first I thought was an essay and I thought it a very interesting observation of human nature.

What is it about human nature that compels us to do things that we know are patently wrong?

Why are we always attracted to the bad boy/girl?

Why do we always take stupid risks?

Why do we follow impulses that we warn others against?

Scott suggests that the "Imp" stands for impulse or impulsiveness and that's certainly possible. But the idea of the imp, a demon that prods us into doing things we wouldn't normally do, would fit just as well into Poe's weird worlds. Because, in the end, the imp/demon is really just another part of us--the shadow, the dark side, whatever you'd like to call it.

So, Pinky says, think about what the imp of perverse has led you to do in your life. I can think of any number of things the little bastard has led me on to do.