The Conqueror Worm: Edgar Allan Poe at His Most Pessimistic

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Conqueror Worm” is not only a fascinating piece of poetry, but also a undeniably stimulating piece of social commentary. The work in of itself is a blissfully well-written work complete with imagery and descriptors that would make even JRR Tolkien jealous, but upon a closer look? Well… it speaks for itself.

“An angel throng, bewinged, bedight/ In veils, and drowned in tears”

Yes, the lines are eloquent and yes, I wish I had been the first one to write them, but the fact of the matter is, they mean something. But what? And who cares what Poe had to say?

To answer the first question, it’s easiest to just… look for a moment at the poem, to carefully read over it. (Click here) You feel something, right? Something a little heavy but not exactly sad or hopeless. Something that’s just… weighted. And that? That’s exactly what Poe’s going for; the slight discomfort and strong sense of impropriety. The feeling that something about the work—maybe the meaning, maybe just the words—is inherently wrong.

And yes, there is, which is part of Poe’s point. The poem—which covers angels watching what is, essentially, the play (or tragedy, as Poe points out) of humanity—is fairly clear from the start. Humanity is not running their world right, isn’t properly considering the repercussions of their actions. They’re running through the world “hither and thither”, unable to really communicate or get their point across. He refers to them as mimes, which is incredibly significant, I think, because it just emphasizes the solidarity of their existence. When you think of mimes, how often do you think of a cluster of them? How often do we really even see several together at once? Almost never.

Mimes, as Poe refers to us, are distinctly solitary by nature. (Why spend time with someone you can’t speak to?) But this leads to an interesting point—we’re so wrapped up in ourselves that we not only don’t communicate with others, we can’t. Humanity isn’t just a set of mimes, though, they’re puppets as well—useless to their own bidding and reliant upon some “vast, formless things” to guide them.

What are these things?

I’ll tell you in one word: sin.

“And much of Madness, and more of Sin,   

   And Horror the soul of the plot.”

What other entity has connotations so strong as these? If we’re a play—if we’re entertainment and mindless and mute, what kind of story are we? A tragedy. Not a comedy, not a love story, a tragedy.

So what’s his point?

Self awareness. Humanity is so blind to its own flaws that it misses everything—the transformation to puppets and, in the end, the conqueror worm—SIN, as the angels sit back and watch humanity fall.

“That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”   

   And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.”

From "YOLO" to "I Know"

Picture your stereotypical never-grew-up high school jock. You know the type--in their late twenties and still partying like it's high school; the kind of guy who has way too much money and too many girls, the kind that seems too unruly to even attempt managing and leaves his friends to do damage control. Terence King is all of this and more.

A prominent character in USA's Necessary Roughness, TK is exactly what you'd expect of a man who has too much talent and not enough discipline--a mess. More than that, though, he's an example of a “Joker.” Jung's archetype is specific--a character that lives with a no-care attitude and has no problem playing jokes to keep the mood airy; someone who says YOLO (or the slightly classier “Carpe Diem”) as an excuse for every stupid thing they do. Again, all of these traits are evident in our go-to irrational character. But what else is there to TK? What makes him matter?

He learns; and with him, so does the audience. Terence, for all his attitude issues, for all his pride and irrationality and moments of pure stupidity, starts to see past himself. He picks up on the importance of other people, of his actions, and of his past. He starts down the slow path to self-awareness. That’s not to say that TK is perfect; he stumbles sometimes, makes some stupid choices and ruins his own opportunities, but that’s what makes it real. Jokers aren't perfect and no one changes overnight--especially in a show that centers around therapy.

Again, though, we are drawn to the "So what?" Besides being an age-old cliché, why should we care about him? Yeah, sure, we learn life lessons, but we could do /that/ listening to a country music station for a few hours (ignoring the drinking songs, of course). Why does TK matter?

The answer is simple—his character provides hope. In the dozens of cases that the show has filtered through, a smattering of successes and failures and even, in the most recent season, suicides, TK makes the steady trek towards growing into himself. And in growing into himself, he grows out of the Joker mentality. The show’s creators aren’t just providing another “you can do anything you work towards” cliché or dreams-come-true Disney moment, even in his growing up, Terence faces trouble, but in the process of that, he also provides a goal. A dream for the viewers—TK as a better person, as someone who makes the right decision not because it benefits him, but because he knows he should.

It’s an easy thing to say, but quite difficult to do; no one is perfect or good or rational all the time; no one is enough to be the ultimate “after” story. But the fact that we keep trying—a fact represented in Terence King, as well as other characters throughout the show—proves that we want to achieve something greater. We believe that we can be better, so we try.

On the trek from Joker to “Rational,” Necessary Roughness has made a resonating point through their never-grown-up jock: we may not be able to do anything we set our minds to, but we can do something if we want it bad enough.

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”

-Lemony Snicket