"Berenice" by Edgar Allan Poe

A dichotomy I had never thought of before that Poe posits here: "...evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been" (141).

It is an interesting perspective from which to approach life from, and though depressing, it seems to be quite accurate. Everything we do or encounter, we compare to something else. We have no choice, no other experience from which to base our current experiences off of other than those that we have already had ourselves. One cannot feel joy without having had sorrow, or vice versa. Everything is dependent upon something else--everything is relevant.

Apart from this compelling idea, another thing that I particularly noticed, especially toward the end of the story, was dreamlike quality that the narrative itself took on. All throughout the story there are moments in which day and night are rapidly changing or meshed together, and it is difficult to keep track. It is as if the entire end of the story is one long bout of fitful sleeping that lasts many days and in which he traverses between the dream world and the real world many times.

"She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the night... I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight..." (146). The story before and after this is also filled with declarations of the time of night or day, seemingly very close together and jumbled.

He confesses that "of that dreary period that intervened [he] had no positive--at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror--horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity... written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. [He] strived to decypher them, but in vain..." He also "shudder[s] in regarding" things without knowing the reason for his unexplainable fear.

This all strikes me because I have experienced a similar feeling before. I see something, an item or person that to anyone else would mean nothing, and I get a sense of foreboding, fear, or even excitement but I don't know why. Upon thinking about it further, I know I had a dream about that thing but I can't remember the dream at all, just the feeling or sentiment attached to it or in association with it and it is the strangest sensation. I believe these types of associations are with everyone and affect the ways in which people regard certain things without even being aware of it. The seemingly "random" feeling they had once has accompanied them throughout their lives and changed the ways in which they respond to specific things. Granted, we might not go to the extremities of pulling out a corpse's teeth in response to these feelings... At least I hope not.