Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Imp of the Perverse, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Reason vs. Impulse
Crime, Justice, and Punishment
Madness and Obsession
Summary
Analysis
The story’s unnamed narrator argues that human beings underestimate the importance of a certain universal impulse. He believes that schools of thought like phrenology (the “science” of predicting mental traits based on skull shape) have “overlooked” this impulse, ignoring it because it seemed to be illogical. Humans have missed the importance of this “propensity,” the narrator claims, largely because philosophies like phrenology attribute all impulses to God and assume that they know what God’s intentions are. Therefore, they describe humanity’s instincts using reason alone, rather than observing them scientifically via lived experience.
The story’s beginning seems more like an essay on human behavior than a piece of fiction, but it’s important to keep in mind that this is all in service of its plot. The narrator, who is later revealed to be a murderer, tries to emphasize that his ideas are wholly objective and scientific—more scientific even than the accepted science of the day (phrenology). He is also clearly very verbose and technical in his language, showing that he is an intelligent and thorough man. In essence, he is stating here that the science of his day has ignored a certain impulse because it seems to be illogical, or against the assumed intentions of God.
Themes
Phrenology, for instance, suggests that humans eat because God designed them that way. However, phrenology doesn’t question why humans eat or examine the objective data that could suggest a scientific cause for eating. It simply attributes to God the impulse to eat, then “assign[s] to man an organ of alimentiveness” (the instinctual desire for food) and fails to investigate further. Similar irresistible impulses (such as the need to procreate) are also often attributed to God by phrenologists (or “Spurzheimites”). The narrator believes that this thinking does not allow for the possibility of free will in human beings. As he claims, attributing human impulses to God means “deducing and establishing everything from the preconceived destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of his Creator.”
Phrenology has been debunked as quackery—and racist quackery to boot—but it still carried influence in Poe’s day. Here, the narrator uses this pseudoscience as part of his explanation for why “perverse” impulses aren’t well understood. He’s trying to point out the flaws of what he sees to be the scientific consensus, specifically stating that scientists have worked backwards from assumed conclusions, rather than observing the way people really act and drawing conclusions from that. The narrator isn’t explicitly talking about himself here or justifying his actions, which gives his monologue an air of objectivity and credibility, but it’s worth remembering that this is all self-interested. Spurzheim was a leading proponent of phrenology, who popularized the pseudoscience in Europe in the early 1800s.
Themes
The narrator claims that it would be far more useful to examine humanity’s actions in and of themselves, instead of relying on assumptions about what people are “intended” to do. After all, God is by nature impossible to understand, and so too are his intentions. A closer investigation of impulse, the narrator claims, would cause phrenologists to “admit” to a “paradoxical something” that he terms “perverseness.” These perverse impulses impel people to do what they “should not”—yet they are just as instinctual and “irresistible” as the impulses impelling people to do what they should. He clarifies that this is not a matter of self-defense through “combativeness,” but is something entirely opposite: a “strongly antagonistical sentiment” to the “desire to be well.”
The narrator makes a good point here: that science should be about observation, not working backwards from preconceived conclusions. Though the specific situation he is leading up to is one that is immoral and even insane, the arguments that he makes on the way are often sound. This leads the reader to relate to him at first (if they can sift through his overly technical language). In this passage the narrator also starts to get more specific about what impulse he is referring to: the vague human instinct toward self-destruction or, as he says, doing what we “should not.”
Themes
The narrator appeals to the reader to examine their “own soul” and admit that they too have felt this impulse to perverseness, often doing what they know they should not do, and for no discernible reason. What occurs, he claims, is that “the impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing […] is indulged.” The narrator gives examples of common situations where this impulse takes over, like stubbornly procrastinating in a task that one truly desires to do, or standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling a dizzying desire to leap, despite knowing that the fall would be deadly.
This is actually an acute psychological insight Poe is making here, particularly for his time. Sigmund Freud would articulate similar ideas in his theory of the “death drive” (the human impulse towards self-destruction), but not until almost a century later. Poe recognizes this nearly universal human instinct for “perverseness,” something that the science and religion of his day (represented by his references to phrenology) would have ignored. The essay-like tone of the story also gradually moves towards a specific plot, as Poe slowly establishes a tone of foreboding and dread. The text hints at dark obsessions, insanity, and people doing things that will cause them direct harm.
Themes
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The narrator concludes that such impulses come “solely from the spirit of the Perverse.” He says that one could attribute this impulse to the devil, or “arch-fiend,” except that sometimes it is “known to operate in furtherance of good.” The narrator then explains why he has offered this account: to explain why he is currently in prison, condemned for a crime. Though “the rabble” have called him insane, he declares that he is instead one of “the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.”
Here the narrator personifies this impulse as a “spirit” and then as an “imp” (a kind of small, mischievous demon), but also clarifies that he thinks the instinct isn’t supernatural, since it isn’t always as evil as the work of the devil himself would be. In admitting this, the narrator might even recognize his own punishment as justice—an example of the Imp working towards good, since it drives him to confess to his murder instead of getting away with it. This passage also shows the narrator suddenly changing focus from a broad discussion of human nature to a specific recollection of his own life. Other people find him insane, but he thinks that he is merely too logical and intelligent for others to recognize—especially since he alone acknowledges the existence of the Imp of the Perverse.
Themes
The narrator goes on to describe the crime for which he has been convicted. He claims that he spent months researching the means to commit murder, inventing and discarding "a thousand schemes" because he thought they might get him caught. After thorough research, the narrator reads a French memoir describing a woman who almost died when she lit a candle that had been "accidentally poisoned." This inspires him to replace the candle on his victim's nightstand with a poisoned one, since he knows “the victim’s habit of reading in bed,” and also that his apartment is “narrow and ill-ventilated.”
This passage brings in another key element of Poe’s work: the murder mystery. Poe is credited with helping to invent the detective story (specifically through stories like “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”), and the notion of a poisoned candle used to commit a surreptitious murder fits the genre as well. The candle also represents the pursuit of truth and knowledge being twisted to evil means. The victim uses the candle to read, but the narrator poisons it so that this act of intellectual curiosity becomes fatal. Similarly, the narrator has “poisoned” his own intelligence by using it to devise a murder.
Themes
The plan succeeds: the narrator replaces the victim’s candle with a poisoned one, the victim lights the candle in his stuffy quarters, and he is swiftly killed. When his body is found “dead in his bed,” the authorities don’t detect the poison in the candle, and declare the death “a visitation from God.” The narrator then removes the remains of the candle without being detected, and covers up all other signs of the crime. He inherits his victim’s estate and lives quite comfortably for many years. Indeed, he revels in his seemingly perfect crime, claiming that “it is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of satisfaction” he gains whenever he thinks about getting away with it.
Having succeeded at murder, the narrator feels no pangs of remorse for his crime, and indeed, takes active joy in getting away with it. It’s important to note that he doesn’t blame the Imp for committing the crime. He’s not upset by the murder: only by the later confession. This enhances the cold, clinical nature of the murder itself, while seeming to confirm the narrator’s psychopathy.
Themes
Eventually, however, the narrator begins to fear capture, with the satisfaction of successfully committing murder slowly giving way to a constant “pondering upon my security.” He becomes obsessed with the thought of capture, and begins to tell himself “I am safe” as a way of keeping his fear at bay. This works for a time, until one day he adds an extension to the thought: “I am safe—yes—if I be not fool enough to make open confession!” He then immediately fixates on this revised thought and fears suddenly and inexplicably confessing to the crime. He is familiar with the “fits of perversity” that he has previously described, and knows that he has never been able to resist acting on his perverse impulses.
The narrator shows his obsessive nature more clearly here. Previously he was ruminating for months on the means of murdering his victim, and he presumably had a preoccupation with phrenology based on the story’s beginning, but now he begins to obsess over the possibility of being caught. The narrator then shows the “perverse” impulse’s power in his own life, after giving his broader explanation earlier. Like a real demon, the “Imp” plants a seed in the narrator’s mind, letting him fixate on it and ratcheting up the pressure until he can’t think about anything else. It’s a frightening concept, which serves to convey the nature of the narrator’s madness and how out of control he feels when confronted with his own mind. It’s especially telling that he has never been able to resist the Imp before.
Themes
The thought consumes the narrator until “Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror.” He walks faster and faster, and eventually begins running, fighting “a maddening desire to shriek aloud.” His actions draw a crowd, which begins to pursue him, and he “felt then the consummation of my fate.” His desperation to avoid confessing leads him to wish he could tear out his own tongue, until a force—which he attributes to “an invisible fiend”—strikes him on the back of the neck. He then apparently confesses to the murder—though he doesn’t remember doing so—undoing his so-called “perfect” crime and landing him in prison to be executed.
The moment that finally dooms the narrator arrives when his obsessive thoughts become irrational actions, allowing him to be noticed by others. It’s a pointed use of irony: in his effort to escape the Imp and the implications of his crime, he actually ends up tipping his hand, which ultimately leads to his capture and confession. That suggests that some kind of cosmic justice does prevail, and that even when the human authorities can’t catch a killer, his deeds will catch up to him nonetheless. Using the narrator’s own words from earlier in the story, this might be an example of the Imp “operat[ing] in furtherance of good.”
Themes
The narrator concludes his tale by noting that he is currently chained in a cell, but will be “unfettered” the next day, when he will be hanged. He wonders where his soul might finally end up.
The narrator clearly believes in an afterlife, and with his execution impending, he wonders about his immortal soul. Is he merely one of the innocent “victims of the Imp of the Perverse”? Or will he be consigned to hell for the murder he committed? The story ends abruptly and on an ambiguous note, as the narrator still has expressed no remorse for actually murdering his victim, and only seems to regret his inability to resist the Imp’s power. It may be that he even recognizes the justice of his fate, as he seems pessimistic about his future in the afterlife.
Themes
