Talk:A Predicament

Novels: Short story / 19th century Mid‑importance

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Entanglement[edit]

The first mention of entanglement in literature was made by Edgar Allan Poe in his short story A Predicament. In it, the protagonist manages to have her head stuck in a large clock face in a church steeple, with the sharp minute hand slicing her neck.

My eyes, from the cruel pressure of the machine, were absolutely starting from their sockets. While I was thinking how I should possibly manage without them, one actually tumbled out of my head, and, rolling down the steep side of the steeple, lodged in a rain gutter which ran along the eaves of the main building. The loss of the eye was not so much as the insolent air of independence and contempt with which it regarded me after it was out. There it lay in the gutter just under my nose, and the airs it gave itself would have been ridiculous had they not been disgusting. Such a winking and blinking were never before seen. This behaviour on the part of my eye in the gutter was not only irritating on account of its manifest insolence and shameful ingratitude, but was also exceedingly inconvenient on account of the sympathy which always exists between two eyes of the same head, however far apart. I was forced, in a manner, to wink and blink, whether I would or not, in exact concert with the scoundrelly thing that lay just under my nose.

Here, two unattached objects act together while being separated by a distance, without regard to the position of the observer. This imaginative description of entanglement merits mention in the article about this short story.Lestrade 19:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)Lestrade[reply]

Interesting. The scene of the eyes is mentioned in the plot summary (it's a hilarious scene). To suggest that this is "quantum entanglement," and especially that its the first literary mention of it, would certainly require a source. If you've got one, feel free to add it in. Otherwise, it's just speculative at best. Considering this is just a comedic piece, I certainly wonder if it's particularly significant to quantum physics. --Midnightdreary 20:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki location question[edit]

Since this has never been published as a separate volume, and this wiki page also includes another story, would it be easier to find if this article was incorporated into a larger page on Poe's work, or else separated into two pages for each story? SarahTheEntwife (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The two stories are companion pieces and really should be treated as a single work. The larger page on Poe's work is fairly inclusive (see Edgar Allan Poe bibliography and you'll see that most of his individual works have separate pages and, in turn, most of those have never been published as a separate volume. I think it makes sense to keep "How to Write a Blackwood Article" with "A Predicament" (most anthologies do too). --Midnightdreary (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense; thanks! SarahTheEntwife (talk) 23:37, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]