# M. Valdemar — Short Fiction character guide

> M. Valdemar in Short Fiction by Edgar Allan Poe.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** M. Ernest Valdemar, Valdemar

**First appearance:** 0061-the-facts-in-the-case-of-m-valdemar

## Snapshot

A gentleman of talents and amiability who consents to be mesmerized at the very moment of death, becoming a voice suspended between worlds.

## Who they are

M. Valdemar is a man whose general amiability has recommended him to those around him, and whose willingness to submit to the narrator's mesmeric experiments makes him the subject of a singular inquiry. As his health fails, the question becomes whether the mesmeric trance can hold him at the threshold of death itself. What he says from that suspended state is the story's whole terrible point.

## Relationships

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_professional_

The narrator, as a mesmerist, conducts an experiment on the dying M. Valdemar, placing him in a hypnotic trance at the moment of death.

## In the story

### [The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se/chapters/the-facts-in-the-case-of-m-valdemar)

The subject of the mesmeric experiment, a dying man who is mesmerized in articulo mortis and later speaks from a state of apparent death.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se/characters/m_valdemar
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se/characters