the facts in the case of m valdemar by edgar allan poe

What does it mean to die? Can an individual be defined as dead, yet continue to live, however tenuous the thread that aligns them with the living? Is it possible to die twice? At first blush, this scenario bears the mark of Gothic fiction: a preoccupation with death, the representation of “undeath,” as well as the trappings of mystery and fear. The process of decay is clear and dramatically so. Any previous confusion is quick to dissipate: the individual has obviously passed.

Is he still “dying”? Is the “treatment” prolonging life, or merely bestowing the appearance of life? Is he somehow hovering between life and death, unable to claim a post among the dead or the living? Eventually, the intervention is ceased. Following a pronunciation of death, certain signs of life persist. Even as the patient’s physical frame remains intact, the boundaries between death and life begin to blur: his consciousness falls into question, and he is only able to move under the volition of another. This condition continues for a considerable amount of time-months-without any serious improvement in health. Someone intervenes, and death is suspended the afflicted appears stable. Even as Poe’s work represents an imaginative interrogation of the scientific enterprise, this nineteenth-century story holds a mirror to contemporary medical practice, inviting a reconsideration of the ethics, language, and power relations surrounding the fraught relationship between death and medical technology.Īn individual is seriously ill, to the point of imminent death. Such application of life-sustaining technology complicates the fundamental binary of life/death, allowing its subjects to resist textual closure. Poe’s literary performance of “undeath” therefore serves to caution real-life cases in which life support is used to sustain an individual reported to be brain-dead. Yet, their utterances “from beyond the grave” highlight the precarious nature of their position and the ethical concerns therein. The ability to transgress these boundaries bears a cost, however: both Valdemar and Jahi McMath lose the autonomy to direct their respective narratives.

Through this juxtaposition, “Valdemar” comes to function as a modern fable, an uneasy herald of medical technology’s potential to create liminal states between life and death. Valdemar” and the real-life case of Jahi McMath, who was maintained on life support for over four years following a diagnosis of brain death. This paper examines the relationship between medical technology and liminal states of “undeath” as presented in “The Facts in the Case of M.

The facts in the case of m valdemar by edgar allan poe