The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

In “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” the title character is in a liminal state for seven months. The mesmeric trance the Narrator has put him into keeps him suspended between life and death (and between sleeping and waking). That Valdemar is in a place to which the living do not have access, and which is therefore difficult to imagine and impossible to verify, makes his condition a central mystery as well as a vehicle for suspense. It invites numerous questions—not just whether Valdemar is alive, dead, or something else, but also whether Valdemar himself is truly speaking in the unearthly voice, and, if so, what this says about the relationship between the mind and body. For the most part, however, Valdemar’s liminal state remains opaque; even he himself is uncertain of his condition in the moments following his apparent death, answering first “Yes” and then “No” when the narrator asks him if he is sleeping.

Emphasizing the strange and exceptional liminal state of Valdemar is a way for Poe to consider the more realistic and relatable question of death as a transition or transformation. The story immediately establishes that Valdemar is dying and that it is his “custom […] to speak calmly of his approaching dissolution, as of a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted” (97).