A Descent into the Maelström

By: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

A seafarer's story of when his ship was sucked into the terrifying maelström...a bottomless whirlpool of gigantic proportions and power...and how he survived to tell the tale.

Public Domain (P)2013 Red Door Consulting GMBH

Epiphany to the rescue

One of my all time favorite stories. While his crew-mates succumbed to madness as their situation grew worser and again, the survivor succumbed to fascination from distraction, wanting to experience the majesty of his final minutes. His observations presented him a release in an Epiphany letting go while his brother clung tighter and tighter for dear life as he disappeared.

I have seen the Moskoe Ström in documentaries. It is a magnificent beast to be admired and respected.

Poe is a master of finding profound beauty in horror.

I am stunned by how well this story stands the test of time. I bought a volume of all of Poe’s works at the end of the last century, when we visited the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia.


This story serves no doubt a metaphor for many different circumstances. It reminds me of the deepest moments of grief, me clinging to all I could imagine could save me, only to let go in a flash of clarity formed by distraction.

That which I clung to would have taken me down with it when it hurtled over the edge, and only then did I realize that it was grief itself I clung to.

It is also a metaphor for the ADD experience, of the outsider perceiving through distraction that which the mainström cannot fathom.

Hansen. afhj23.