"Art is a jealous mistress." Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote easily summarizes "The Oval Portrait," written by Edgar Allen Poe. It is a chilling tale, describing the two different passions of a married couple. The husband, a painter, requests that the wife let him paint her portrait, and in obeying him, she meets her doom. As the painting matured, her health and spirits declined and yet she remained and, without objection, she continued to sit for him. His passions increase and after many weeks, as the painting nears completion, each stroke of the brush strips her of her beauty, and finally, upon the conclusion of the painting, it robs her of her life. This is a bewitching story of passion, murder, vampirism, and murder.
Poe's story is an uncanny analysis of two passions: art and romance. …
