The first words of the story “MS. Found in a Bottle” by Edgar Allan Poe is a quote from the French opera Atys, “Who has only one moment left to live Has nothing left to hide” (Poe 1). This roughly translates to the idea that a man dying or in the last moments of his life has nothing to hide. Whether the truth comes out voluntarily or involuntarily, man has no reason to lie. This quote can be interpreted differently in relation to Poe's story. A man who feels close to death, or a man who feels suicidal and alone has no need to lie. At this point, the truth might even sound like a cry for help. Outside of the psychoanalytic lens, the opening serves, on the surface, as a foreshadowing of the narrator's demise and proves his reliability. Psychoanalytic criticism “attempts to…provide a psychological study of an individual writer” (Smith 304). When a story is analyzed psychoanalytically, it can reveal a lot about an author's mind. “Writers reveal instinctive or repressed selves in their books” (Smith 305). Deep inner feelings shine through in an author's work. Fear, anger, and sadness (in the form of loneliness) are the predominant emotions the narrator feels throughout the story. Through a psychoanalytic lens, the story “MS. Found in a Bottle,” reveals to readers that Edgar Allan Poe survived a trauma during his life that changed him and continued to affect him throughout his life. His subconscious feelings of loneliness, fear, and frustration during and after the event manifest themselves in the story in which he ultimately writes about himself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The first clue that the story is actually about a traumatic experience that Poe survived is the fact that the story is about a survivor. The shipwreck is a terrifying ordeal that the narrator survives. He experiences it with only one other person, the Swede. “We soon discovered that we were the only survivors of the accident” (Poe 2). They stayed together “for five whole days and five nights” (Poe 2). This Swede was the only other person to feel the same terror, to have the same experience. He was the only one who could understand how the narrator felt about it. Then the Swede dies, leaving the narrator alone the day after the accident. He is the only survivor of the shipwreck which he does not expect to survive at all. In fact, he is prepared for death: “I fearlessly awaited the ruin that would crush him” (Poe 4). He survives the trauma but it changes him and his view of his environment. He immediately enters a new and foreign setting. The second ship was “a horrible thing which inspired [them] with horror and astonishment” (Poe 5). The idea of ​​moving forward seems unfathomable and frightening. On the second ship, there are reminders and triggers everywhere. His anxiety consumes him. Poe writes details of the narrator's constant and increasing state of fear throughout the story which ends with a psychotic breakdown that takes his mind back to the traumatic shipwreck. It focuses significantly on the discomfort felt by the narrator throughout the story. His stress level is visibly high from the start and builds to unavoidable terror as the story progresses. He was terrified by the things that seemed to portend the destruction of the first ship: “my anxiety, however, prevented me from sleeping” and he had “a full presentiment of evil” (Poe 8). The destruction of the ship shortly after validated itsanticipation. This validation pushes his panic further onto the second ship. He begins to relive the moments before the first shipwreck and recreate that feeling of anticipation. The mention of the fact that "the wind is always on our droppings" (Poe 8) is almost identical to the previous "the flame of a candle burned on the droppings without the slightest perceptible sign of movement" (Poe 2). He starts having the same thoughts as before when triggered. This pushes him into panic. He writes about how threatening the waves are: “the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons from the deep, but like demons confined to mere threats” (Poe 8). These crashing waves appear terrifying to the reader through the narrator's eyes but in reality, without the menacing character projected onto them by the timid survivor, they are just waves that do not reach the deck of the ship. In his mind, the waves seem like a very serious threat, but he exaggerates them disproportionately because they don't actually represent one. Even small things can be triggered if they bring back memories of the past. He is truly surprised that “the enormous volume of the ship is not swallowed up at once and forever” (Poe 7). Survival seems to be a miracle with all these so-called threats around him. These dangers are not perceived by those around him. “I find it impossible to maintain balance even if the crew seems to experience little inconvenience” (Poe 7). He also notes the “swirl” at the beginning and end. All of this shows the reader that the narrator sees threats to his safety that no one else sees. There are imaginary dangers all around him that return his mind to the state of mind of the initial trauma. The striking similarities between the beginning and the ending show that Poe experienced the cyclical nature of memory-induced fear. He wrote the second whirlwind and sinking to represent a hallucination or nightmare resulting from the lasting mental effects of the initial tragedy and exposure to emotional triggers. The loneliness that Poe writes into the story is perhaps the most important aspect to examine. At the beginning of the story, the narrator feels separated from his family and his country (Poe 1). He feels very alone in the world. However, due to the narrative style, he writes and feels this after the shipwreck and while hiding in the second ship. The shipwreck, a traumatic event which makes him experience feelings he had never felt before: "A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken hold of my soul, a sensation which does not lend itself to to any analysis, to which the lessons of past times are insufficient and to which I fear that the future itself offers me no key” (Poe 5). Poe writes about loneliness and other new feelings he experienced. His mind does things it has never done before, as a result of the tragedy. He feels that no matter how much time he is given, he will not be able to name this feeling. This depicts a feeling of hopelessness and an inability to feel different or escape from where he is. Coupled with his loneliness, the narrator also feels completely detached from his surroundings. This is particularly evident in his interactions with the crew of the second ship. This ship is representative of life among others after a traumatic adventure. He is surrounded by crew members whom he paints as some sort of ghostly untouchables with “the anger of second childhood and the solemn dignity of a God” (Poe 6). He cannot relate to the people around him. They are inaccessible and disconnected from him. He feels completely ignored: "They paid me no attention and, even though I was standing in the middle.