Absence of Beauty Edgar Allan Poe sees evil as a living threat to man because he lives in its presence. Parallel with the tragedies in his own life relating to the deaths of his young mother, wife and others he loved in his life. It is no wonder that he sees the absence of beauty as evil, because he felt the terror and tragedy of the loss of his own life. In his stories he illustrates how the absence of beauty is the essence of evil. In “The Tell Tale Heart” when the old man’s eyes is closed he would not be killed because his eye is not considered ugly. That is why each night the man goes