The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

One very important element of “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” can be located in the story’s very title—Poe presents the text that follows as consisting of the “facts” of a medical case (albeit a strange one). This can have two effects; it can either 1) help convince readers that this is a true account of a horrible event, or 2) create a striking juxtaposition between this title, which promises Fact and Objectivity, and the impossible events of the story. 

This dynamic—being repeatedly, emphatically told to believe something that seems unbelievable—is central to Poe’s story. This is the prerogative of the Narrator, for very basic purposes of the story he is telling, but it also puts the reader in the position of all of the characters of the story, who witness firsthand Valdemar caught between life and death in The Liminality of Death for over half a year, followed by the dramatic and incredible collapse of his body into a “liquid mass” (103) of rotting material the instant he is brought out of this trance. Unlike some of Poe’s other stories, “The Facts in the Case of M.