preview

Comparing Poe And Hitchcock's Use Of Suspense

Good Essays

Poe and Hitchcock have published numerous stories and movies that follow the same guidelines. Poe's poems and writings are very dark and mysterious, he draws you in with depression or suspension that builds terror. Hitchcock is the same way, he develops terror through his movies by building suspense to create a horror movie. Hitchcock and Poe developed their pieces with suspense to build terror in similar and deferent ways by using literary devices and mise-en-scene. Within Poe's writings he uses a vast amount of imagery to symbolize main concepts, as well as, to explain what is happening in depth to the reader or audience. Hitchcock demonstrates the same technique except he uses the lighting when making his films. In Poe's story "The Masque …show more content…

This device develops suspense because the reader is unaware of the outcome or the possible twist. Most people do not realize the foreshadowing done until the climax is relied. In The House of Usher, Poe foreshadows the sister's , of the main characters, death is false through numerous word plays. She was never dead, but un responsive, until finally she is alive and after them. "I did actually hear (laugh from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual scream and granting sound" (Poe 22). This line from Poe, foreshadows that the sister will wake, and that she will be overturned by the events that unraveled. By Poe foreshadowing her wake and revenge, he leaves the reader analyzing the future, building the suspense for what may or may not happen, and this suspense build terror within the story and the reader. Hitchcock does the same technique in his film The Birds but instead he uses music within the film. In the movie, birds attack the town and kill or injure the townspeople. During one scene at the school, the children keep singing a song that has really long chorus that gets creepier and creepier as the keep singing. While they sing, the film makers use jump-cuts to show the school then how the birds keep collecting around the school ( The Birds). The music and cuts bind together to create suspense and horror because the audience knows something horrific and terrible is going to

Get Access