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EDGAR ALLAN POE: A TRAGIC LIFE Unlike many other American writers, Edgar Allan Poe had a tragic life from the moment he was born to the end he died. His parents were traveling actors and both passed away before he was two. Edgar Allan Poe was adopted by a wealthy family in Richmond, Virginia, where he got his family name: Allan. This is his fortunate and unfortunate. On one hand, he met kind foster parents, who offered him well education and sufficient love. On the other hand, he could never adjust himself to the southern gentry because of both his lonely characteristic and his incomprehensible imagination talent. Perhaps he was over-indulged by Mr. Allan, had no restraining influence in the early years, Perhaps his self-identity was so strong that he made himself wandering outside the society. Edgar Allan Poe seemed to be a loser in everything: ¡°When he was seventeen, he entered the University of Virginia. He stayed in the University only one year. In some studies he showed remarkable ability but he gambled and drank, and ran deeply into debt. Mr. Allan, his foster-father, refused to pay his gambling debts and took him from the University. He was placed in a counting room in Richmond, but finding the work most distasteful, he soon broke away and went to Boston.¡± ¡°After a brief enlistment in the army, Poe accepted an appointment to West Point, which Allan had helped to arrange.
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