ONE OF THE MOST interesting centers of a literary work is that of Edgar Allan Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). As I've noted, it was the first literary center I found, and it led, eventually, to this book.

Poe's adventurous sea narrative comprises twenty-five chapters, and the central one of these, chapter 13, is a two-week journal (July 24 to August 7) containing twenty-two paragraphs. The August 1 entry—the eleventh paragraph—is the center. It richly illuminates the autobiographical import of the novel.

The voyage to the south has, at this point, involved secret stowage, mutiny, counter-mutiny, hurricane, the Flying Dutchman, and cannibalism. In chapter 13, Pym's friend Augustus Barnard is dying from a wounded arm that has mortified. In the critical central paragraph, Augustus dies. The essential language is as follows:

This passage subtly conveys one of the tragedies of Poe's life. While the protagonist Arthur Gordon Pym corresponds to the author Edgar Allan Poe—the rhythm alone is suggestive—so does Pym's friend Augustus Barnard correspond to Poe's brother Henry. Both are tall and slender, tellers of tales of travel, and given to drink. Pym is two years younger than Augustus just as Poe was two years younger than Henry. Both Augustus and Henry were sick, and both died as young men on August 1. The central passage in Pym is Poe's representation of the death of his brother—a death he may well have witnessed. After all, until his brother's death in 1831, he and Henry were living with their Aunt Maria Clemm and her mother, her son, and her daughter Virginia, in a small apartment in Baltimore. Probably Edgar and Henry shared the same room—maybe even the same bed.

Symmetrical language frames this dramatic center.