From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were--I have not seen
As others saw--I could not bring
My passions from a common spring--
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow -- I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone--
And all I lov'd -- alone --
Then -- in my childhood -- in the dawn
Of a most stormy life -- was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still --
From the torrent, or the fountain --
From the red cliff of the mountain --
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold --
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by --
From the thunder, and the storm --
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view --

     In this poem Alone, by Edgar Allen Poe, he describes the reason for his more twisted sense of story telling. He explains that as a child he never saw things the same as other people, that his sense of perception was altered. Through the use of the analogy of a storm, he describes his childhood as unpleasant and rocky. Because of this hard childhood he cannot see things in different lights, only in unpleasant and graphic frame of mind.

     Now, at last, I thrust our stake in a bed of embers to get it red-hot and rallied all my comrades: 'Courage no panic, no one hold back now!' And green as it was, just as the olive stake was about to catch fire- the glow terrific yes- I dragged it from the flames, my men clustering round as some god breathed enormous courage through us all. Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point, straight into the monster's eye they rammed it hard- I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home as a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright's drill that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl and the drill keeps twisting faster, never stopping- So we seized our stake with its fiery tip and bored it round and round in the giants eye till blood came boiling up around that smoking shaft and the hot blast singed his brow and eyelids around the core and the broiling eyeball burst.

     This passage from the Odyssey is from the cyclops' layer, during Odysseus's escape. The short story of the escape in its self  is well known. I believe one of  the reasons for this is because of the imagery that Homer uses through Odysseus's character. This small scene from the much greater text being one of the most case-making passages. The poetry used to paint the vivid picture of the cyclops going blind is so well crafted that the reader gets such a life-like image some become ill from the thoughts of the scene. Using such descriptions as "thrust the stake in a bed of embers to make it red-hot" and "I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home..." creates such an intense scene that it is hard not to get wrapped up in the brutality of the encounter. As if to make it harder to turn your eyes from the scene, Homer integrates a hint of Odysseus's madness into the scene by adding small lines like 'the glow terrific yes' and 'we seized our stake... and bore it round and round in the giants eye till... the eye burst'. Adding these small lines into Odysseus's speech, mixed with the intensity moment makes the whole process seem wonderfully mad.