During the nineteenth century, there was a common fear that plagued the Americans and Europeans alike; this was the fear of premature burial. Doctors during this era lacked the modern medical knowledge that we now posses and would sometimes pronounce people dead who were in comas or even unconscious. The assumed dead would then awake during the funeral service or even once buried. After this began to become a common occurrence, the people started to make many precautions in the burying the dead. They would bury a person with a crowbar and shovel in case of premature burial; the person...
prominent problem it was during his lifetime.

The idea that such thing as live burial could be a common worry is almost laughable by today"s standards. The medical technology today allows us to know with 100% accuracy that a person is dead, but the people in the 19th century did not have these advantages and made it difficult to tell if a person was actually dead. As shown in his writings, Poe was one of the many who shared the common fear of this dreadful event, which set the tone for many of his most thrilling and dreadful stories.