Poe

   Poe's works are known for being mysterious, haunting and ominous. He has shown himself to be a stickler about attention-to-detail and uses these details to create a story that demands analytical and cognitive skills from the reader. This is why Poe's stories are so popular in educational systems around the world. Not only are they challenging, but they are interesting. He creates a world for readers to envelop themselves in using sensory details, characters of great personality, and of course attention-to-detail throughout the entire world. I enjoy this kind of reading because it requires me to push myself to read between the lines and serves as a challenge for me. However, I don't enjoy having a deadline attached to the reading because it typically takes me longer to comprehend and fully understand all of the details of the story.

   Like his stories, Poe too was perceived to be a mysterious man by many. This trait most likely started developing when both of his parents died when he was only 3 years old. He was sent to live with John Allan who had aspirations of Poe being a wealthy businessman. Poe, however, objected and wanted to become a writer as his childhood hero, Lord Byron, had. Later on in his life, Poe faced extreme poverty and tried gambling to overcome it. When this failed, he was publicly humiliated and looked for an outlet to his frustrations. He went back to doing what he had loved doing from childhood: writing. Throughout his life, Poe used his stories as an outlet for all his emotions. I think this is why he and his writings take on a similar persona of mysterious and ominous.

What Is An American?

There are many criteria for being considered an "American", in my opinion. The first and most obvious criterion is that you have to be a citizen of the United States. To fully understand what it is to be an American, one has to live in the country and experience its lifestyle. However, one cannot state that because they are a citizen in the country, they are an American. Secondly, an American believes in democracy and takes every measure to attain, practice, and preserve it. The definition of democracy is "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections." Another definition is "an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights". An example of  a group of people who didn't practice democracy would be the US citizens who oppressed African-Americans through the slave trade and neglect of civil rights. They did not believe that everyone should be treated equally and had equal rights. They also did not believe that African-Americans should be represented in the system. Lastly, the third criterion for one to be considered an American is to accept individuality and diversity. America is considered a "mixing pot" of all kinds of people from different kinds of cultural background. If one cannot accept that another person may believe or behave differently than them, then they don't deserve to be called an American. This also merits the act of being an individual. To me, this means that nobody can tell someone else how they should or should not behave without proper justification (e.g. the law). Religious groups that condemn others and tell individuals that they are damned by God for something like homosexuality aren't composed of Americans. They don't believe in the practice of individuality! There is too much variation, in terms of kinds of people, in the country for others to be constantly passing judgment on someone else for their differences. Americans must be accepting of others. In synopsis, an American is someone who is a citizen of the United States. This citizen is democratic and every measure that needs to be taken to promote the practice of democracy is taken. Lastly, they are accepting of people from all walks of life and don't suppress the opinions and actions of others that contrast their own.