The Premature Burial

The symbol of earth is used frequently throughout the story, albeit in sometimes conflicting ways. The first time the word “earth” is mentioned is in the context of an earthquake, one of the narrator’s examples of a terrifying historical occurrence. In a similar manner, the narrator describes a “commotion of the earth” when recounting the story of an artillery officer who is buried alive (Paragraph 10). In both cases, there is a sense of the earth as a source of power beyond human agency and control, despite being an obvious symbol for the natural world. Poe’s use of this symbol blurs the boundary between the natural and supernatural worlds.

This symbol also blurs The Line Between Truth and Fiction. Referring to premature burial, the narrator remarks that “we know of knowing so agonizing upon Earth” (Paragraph 21). This suggests that earthly, true, and historical occurrences are the most terrifying because they are verifiable. Yet this statement is contrasted throughout the story with images of bodies being almost supernaturally “unearthed” from a damp, smelly, dark, underworld-like realm.

Unearthing can often be used as a symbol of uncovering or demystifying the truth, but in this story it is constantly mystified or fictionalized by the narrator, often to an irrational and obsessive degree. The earth represents a boundary between death and life, the supernatural and the natural, or what is above and what is below the surface. For the narrator, being above the surface symbolizes light, air, and growing grass. However, what might lie beneath the surface of the earth terrifies him. Even the earth’s smell is a sign of death, and he primarily conceptualizes it as a cold, damp darkness that houses worms and decay.