Edgar Allan Poe has been noted as an eccentric and scandalized as a womanizing drunkard with little scruples or friends. While much of his life has been garnished with exaggerations and sensationalized conjectures, there were significant, irrefutable ties he made to several different women. Poe proposed to Elmira Royster before eighteen years of age and the two would have married had she not gotten engaged to another man while he was attending the University of Virginia. Almost ten years would pass before Poe would marry Virginia Clemm at twenty-seven. It was during his marriage to Virginia that Poe met Fanny Osgood, a fellow poet gaining momentum and recognition. It was this relationship specifically that produced the most rumors and eventual heartache for Virginia. Poe attracted Osgood's interest with an overt compliment in regard to her writing in the midst of a lecture meant to defame the current state of American poetry. It has been speculated that their meeting produced several love poems under pen names, though the identities of both parties were hardly concealed. Not only Poe's relationship to Osgood, but his relationship to another poet, Elizabeth Ellet, caused the perpetuating gossip about potential affairs. After Virginia's death from tuberculosis, he fawned over a married, unattainable Nancy Richmond, became engaged to Sarah Helen Whitman for a month, and then got re-engaged to the woman he first proposed to, Elmira Royster. It was during his engagement to Elmira that he mysteriously died (Giammarco). Based on Poe's life alone, regardless of whether the alleged affairs are fact or mere speculation, he could be labeled as a womanizer, unfaithful, and incapable of being alone. It is imperative that his personal life be taken into consideration when making speculations about his possible sympathetic involvement in any women's rights movements, even if to a small degree. Involved with so many women, especially women that were attempting to make names for themselves within the literary world, it could easily be argued that Poe would have a propensity toward any women's rights movements that would further women and careers. "The Oval Portrait,  written in 1842, was not coincidentally published during the initial forming of women's rights conventions coupled with the Woman's Suffrage amendment on the very brink of being introduced into U.S. Congress (Women's International Network News). The main purpose of "The Oval Portrait  was to allegorically portray the current state of women's lives. The girl within the metatext is singularly beautiful and sublimely vivacious prior to falling subject to the uncontrollable adoration the painter elicits from her. Poe has this charming, endearing girl fall for a man that is primarily wed to his occupation, caring more about personal gain than the welfare of his bride. The girl's source of happiness, livelihood even, comes from the painter. Rendered completely dependent upon her husband for everything and irrevocably in love with him despite his divided affections, the girl is willing to do anything asked of her. Creating the characters of the girl and the painter as foils for