The Angel of the Odd

Information about The Angel of the Odd

"The Angel of the Odd"
AuthorEdgar Allan Poe
Original title"The Angel of the Odd: An Extravaganza"
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Satire, Humor
PublisherColumbian Magazine
Publication dateOctober 1844


"The Angel of the Odd" is a 1844 short story written by 19th century author Edgar Allan Poe. It is written as a satire.

Plot summary

The story follows an unnamed narrator who reads a story about a man who died after accidentally sucking a needle down his throat. He rages at the gullibility of humanity for believing a hoax. He vows to never fall for such odd stories. Just then, a strange-looking creature made of a keg and wine bottles appears. The creature announces in a heavy accent that he is the Angel of the Odd - and that he is responsible for causing such strange events.

The man, unconvinced, drives the angel away and takes an alcohol-induced nap. Instead of a 25-minute nap, he wakes up two hours later, having missed an appointment to renew his fire insurance. Ironically, his house has caught fire and his only escape is out a window using a ladder the crowd below has provided for him. As he steps down, a hog brushes against the ladder, causing the narrator to fall and fracture his arm.

Later, the narrator's attempts at wooing a rich woman to be his wife end in failure when she realizes he is wearing a wig which he must wear since the fire in his apartment singed off his hair. Then, he tried to woo another woman who also leaves him when she scoffs him for ignoring her as she passes by. In reality, a particle had gotten into his eye, blinding him, just as she passed him.

Finally, the narrator decides his ill fortune is cause for him to end his life. He decides to commit suicide by drowning himself in a river after removing his clothes ("for this is no reason why we cannot die as we were born," he says). However, a crow runs off with "the most indispensable portion" of his clothes and chases after it. As he is running, he runs off a cliff, only realizing too late. He grabs on to the long rope of a hot air balloon as it happens to be floating by. The Angel of the Odd reappears to him and makes him admit that the bizarre really can happen. The narrator agrees, but the Angel doesn't save him; instead, he cuts the rope and the man falls down onto his newly-rebuilt house through the chimney and into the dining room. The man then realizes this was his punishment. "Thus revenged himself the Angel of the Odd."

Allusions

The introductory paragraph of the story alludes (by last name only) to several authors, particularly: Glover, Wilkie, and Griswold.

Analysis

The story is especially interesting as it was published only six months before Poe's own great hoax, "The Balloon-Hoax," which many believed to be true despite its elements of the odd.

Publication History

"The Angel of the Odd" was first published in Columbian Magazine in April of 1844. Its original full title was "The Angel of the Odd: An Extravaganza."[1]

References

1. ^ Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z, Paperback ed., New York: Checkmark Books, 11. ISBN 081604161X. 

External links

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Poems
Poetry (1824) • O, Tempora! O, Mores! (1825) • Song (1827) • Imitation (1827) • Spirits of the Dead (1827) • A Dream (1827) • Stanzas" (1827) (1827) • Tamerlane (1827) • The Lake (1827) • Evening Star (1827) • A Dream (1827) • To Margaret (1827) • The Happiest Day (1827) • To The River —— (1828) • Romance (1829) • Fairy-Land (1829) • To Science (1829) • To Isaac Lea (1829) • Al Aaraaf (1829) • An Acrostic (1829) • Elizabeth (1829) • To Helen (1831) • A Paean (1831) • The Sleeper (1831) • The City in the Sea (1831) • The Valley of Unrest (1831) • Israfel (1831) • The Coliseum (1833) • Enigma (1833) • Fanny (1833) • Serenade (1833) • Song of Triumph from Epimanes (1833) • Latin Hymn (1833) • To One in Paradise (1833) • Hymn (1835) • Politician (1835) • May Queen Ode (1836) • Spiritual Song (1836) • Bridal Ballad (1837) • To Zante (1837) • The Haunted Palace (1839) • Silence, a Sonnet (1839) • Lines on Joe Locke (1843) • The Conqueror Worm (1843) • Lenore (1843) • Eulalie (1843) • A Campaign Song (1844) • Dream-Land (1844) • Impromptu. To Kate Carol (1845) • To Frances (1845) • The Divine Right of Kings (1845) • Epigram for Wall Street (1845) • The Raven (1845) • A Valentine (1846) • Beloved Physician (1847) • An Enigma (1847) • Deep in Earth (1847) • Ulalume (1847) • Lines on Ale (1848) • To Marie Louise (1848) • Evangeline (1848) • A Dream Within A Dream (1849) • Eldorado (1849) • For Annie (1849) • The Bells (1849) • Annabel Lee (1849) • Alone (1875)
Metzengerstein (1832) • The Duc De L'Omelette (1832) • A Tale of Jerusalem (1832) • Loss of Breath (1832) • Bon-Bon (1832) • MS. Found in a Bottle (1833) • The Assignation (1834) • Berenice (1835) • Morella (1835) • Lionizing (1835) • The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (1835) • King Pest (1835) • Shadow - A Parable (1835) • Four Beasts in One - The Homo-Cameleopard (1836) • Mystification (1837) • Silence - A Fable (1837) • Ligeia (1838) • How to Write a Blackwood Article (1838) • A Predicament (1838) • The Devil in the Belfry (1839) • The Man That Was Used Up (1839) • The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) • William Wilson (1839) • The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839) • Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling (1840) • The Business Man (1840) • The Man of the Crowd (1840) • The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) • A Descent into the Maelstrm (1841) • The Island of the Fay (1841) • The Colloquy of Monos and Una (1841) • Never Bet the Devil Your Head (1841) • Eleonora (1841) • Three Sundays in a Week (1841) • The Oval Portrait (1842) • The Masque of the Red Death (1842) • The Landscape Garden (1842) • The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842) • The Pit and the Pendulum (1842) • The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) • The Gold-Bug (1843) • The Black Cat (1843) • Diddling (1843) • The Spectacles (1844) • A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844) • The Premature Burial (1844) • Mesmeric Revelation (1844) • The Oblong Box (1844) • The Angel of the Odd (1844) • Thou Art the Man (1844) • The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. (1844) • The Purloined Letter (1844) • The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade (1845) • Some Words with a Mummy (1845) • The Power of Words (1845) • The Imp of the Perverse (1845) • The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (1845) • The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) • The Sphinx (1846) • The Cask of Amontillado (1846) • The Domain of Arnheim (1847) • Mellonta Tauta (1849) • Hop-Frog (1849) • Von Kempelen and His Discovery (1849) • X-ing a Paragrab (1849) • Landor's Cottage (1849)
Other works
Essays: Maelzel's Chess Player (1836) • The Daguerreotype (1840) • The Philosophy of Furniture (1840) • A Few Words on Secret Writing (1841) • The Rationale of Verse (1843) • Morning on the Wissahiccon (1844) • Old English Poetry (1845) • The Philosophy of Composition (1846) • The Poetic Principle (1846) • Eureka (1848) Hoaxes: • The Balloon-Hoax (1844) Novels: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837) • The Journal of Julius Rodman (1840) Plays: Scenes From 'Politian' (1835) Other: The Conchologist's First Book (1839) • The Light-House (1849)
Edgar Allan Poe

This daguerreotype of Poe was taken in 1848 when he was 39, a year before his death.
Born: January 19 1809(1809--)
Boston, Massachusetts U.S.
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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English}}} 
Writing system: Latin (English variant) 
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: en
ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng  
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Satire (from Latin satura, not from the Greek mythological figure satyr[1]) is a literary genre, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision,
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Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the ability or quality of people, objects, or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. The term encompasses a form of entertainment or human communication which evokes such feelings, or which makes people laugh
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-1844- 1845 1846 1847  1848 .  1849 .  1850 .  1851  . 1852  . 1853  . 1854 

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-1844- 1845 1846 1847  1848 .  1849 .  1850 .  1851  . 1852  . 1853  . 1854 

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The short story is a literary genre. It is usually fictional narrative prose and tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction, such as novellas (in the modern sense of this term) and novels.
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Edgar Allan Poe

This daguerreotype of Poe was taken in 1848 when he was 39, a year before his death.
Born: January 19 1809(1809--)
Boston, Massachusetts U.S.
..... Click the link for more information.
Satire (from Latin satura, not from the Greek mythological figure satyr[1]) is a literary genre, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision,
..... Click the link for more information.
narrator is an entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. It is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind. The others are the author and the reader (or audience). The author and the reader both inhabit the real world.
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The term gullibility refers to the state of being easily deceived. Someone who fits into this category is said to be gullible. There are several causes of gullibility.
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hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. There is often some material object (e.g., snake oil) involved which is actually a forgery; however, it is possible to perpetrate a hoax by making only true statements using unfamiliar wording or
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Accent may refer to:
  • Accent (linguistics), pronunciation common to a certain group of people
  • Accent (cooking), an additional flavor added to a base sauce
  • Accent is also used as a synonym for monosodium glutamate (MSG)

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angel (Lat. angelus, pl. angeli) is a supernatural being found in many religions. In Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, angels, as attendants or guardians to man, typically act as messengers from God.
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Property insurance provides protection against most risks to property, such as fire, theft and some weather damage. This includes specialized forms of insurance such as fire insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, home insurance or boiler insurance.
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A ladder is a vertical or inclined set of rungs or steps. There are two types: rigid ladders that can be leaned against a vertical surface such as a wall, and rope ladders that are hung from the top. The vertical members of a rigid ladder are called beams (US) or stiles (UK).
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Sus
Linnaeus, 1758

Species

Sus barbatus
Sus bucculentus†
Sus cebifrons
Sus celebensis
Sus domestica
Sus falconeri†
Sus heureni

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Luck is a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control. Luck can be good or bad.

Luck as lack of control

Luck refers to that which happens beyond a person's control.
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Suicide (Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) or Self-murder, is the act of intentionally terminating one's own life. Suicide occurs for a number of reasons such as depression, substance abuse, shame, avoiding pain, financial difficulties or other undesirable fates.
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Corvus
Linnaeus, 1758

Species

See text.
The true crows are large passerine birds that comprise the genus Corvus. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-sized jackdaws (Eurasian and Daurian) to the Common Raven of the
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hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology, dating back to its invention by the Montgolfier brothers in Annonay, France in 1783. The first flight carrying humans was made on November 21, 1783, in Paris by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François
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Richard Glover (1712 – November 25, 1785), English poet, son of Richard Glover, a Hamburg merchant, was born in London.

He was educated at Cheam in Surrey. While there he wrote in his sixteenth year a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, which was prefixed by Dr
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William Wilkie (1721 - 1772) was a Scottish poet. The son of a farmer, he was born in West Lothian and educated at Edinburgh. In 1757 he published the Epigoniad, dealing with the Epigoni, sons of the seven heroes who fought against Thebes.
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Rufus Wilmot Griswold

1855 engraving by Miner Kilbourne Kellogg
Born: January 15 1815(1815--)
Benson, Vermont, United States
Died: July 12 1857
New York City, New York
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The Balloon-Hoax" is the title now used for a newspaper article written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1844. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a hot air balloon.
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Project Gutenberg

Location Salt Lake City, UT
Established 1971
Collection size Over 22,000
Director Michael Hart
Website [1]

Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive and distribute cultural works.
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Essays: Maelzel's Chess Player (1836) • The Daguerreotype (1840) • The Philosophy of Furniture (1840) • A Few Words on Secret Writing (1841) • The Rationale of Verse (1843) •
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"Tamerlane" is an epic poem by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the 1827 collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. That collection, with only 50 copies printed, was not credited with the author's real name but by "A Bostonian.
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"To Science," or "Sonnet - To Science" is an 1829 poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. The traditional 14-line English sonnet says that science is the enemy of the poet because it takes away the mysteries of the world.
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