The Importance of Landscape in A Tale of the Ragged Mountains In his article, Philippon begins by discussing the importance that landscape plays in “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains." First, he quotes William Carlos Williams as saying that Poe was "intimately shaped by his locality and his time", although he tends to focus on the "soul" of his surroundings, rather than the physical aspects. Philippon then goes on to say that he believes that Poe, in fact, uses the physical landscape in this particular story to highlight the differences between the fictional surroundings of the story's Indian landscape and that of the Ragged Mountains. The author states that this is "fundamental to a complete understanding of the story". Most of “Ragged Mountains,” however, deals with the mental condition of the characters. Philippon identifies the thoughts of another critic, Doris V Falk, when discussing the other landscape of history: that of the mind. She believes that Poe intended this story to be “a study in hypnosis” with a “focus on animal magnetism"....