Throughout the first half of the 19th century, America looked in the mirror and saw that it was good. As a beacon of democracy, the United States seemed to shine as the light of the world, demonstrating through the election of President Andrew Jackson in 1828 that even a rural commoner had the potential to rise to the top of the political hierarchy. On another level, under the growing influence and success of the Industrial Revolution, the American people seemed to largely embrace the belief that nature could be conquered by man, that no dangers posed by the natural world were beyond the salvation offered by human technology. And then there was the global vision of Manifest Destiny, the blessed call of the nation to expand its territory from coast to coast and thus fulfill its purpose as a paradigm of virtue amid the savagery of the New World. Yet beneath the surface of every favorable reflection lay shadows of hypocrisy that cast silent judgment on these shining images of prosperity: that democracy empowered the people, but only if it was white men; the reality that industrial progress was accompanied by egalitarian regression; and the truth that Manifest Destiny served only as an imperialist justification, a sort of divine mandate, for the expulsion and massacre of countless Native Americans. This tension between negative nuance and positive facade, between dark realities and their euphemized reflections, created a critical dissonance in the 19th century. century, so that the nation appeared seemingly promising on the surface, and yet remained ravaged by storms of contradictions underneath. Perhaps inspired by this internal struggle between illusion... middle of paper... only reality in the person's mind. Works Cited Fisher, Benjamin F. The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print. Gargano, James W. "'The Black Cat': Perversity Reconsidered." Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Poe's Tales. Ed. William L. Howarth. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1971. 87-94. Print.Hammond, JR Edgar Allan Poe Companion: The Short Stories. London: MacMillan Press, 1981. Print. Jones, Paul Christian. “Slavery and abolition.” Edgar Allan Poe in context. Ed. Kevin A. Hayes. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013. 138-147. Print.Quinn, Arthur H. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. 1941. Print. Robinson, E. Arthur. “Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart.” Reviews of Poe. Ed. David B. Kesterson. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1973. 107-115. Print.