Comparing Poe and Whittman Essay

In his Philosophy of Composition, Edgar Allan Poe informs us that he begins writing with “the consideration of an effect” (430). Most of Poe’s poetry and fiction exemplifies his assertion that a preconceived effect upon a reader is undoubtedly fundamental to his creative work. Poe’s tales of terror in particular epitomize the supremacy of his craft in that each component of his narrative strategy functions to achieve the final effect of generating unmitigated terror in his readers. Focusing primarily on The Fall of the House of Usher, I argue that Poe employs a preconceived narrative

When writing “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe used the setting outside of the mansion to illustrate the theme of the fear of death. From the outset, the Rodrick Usher’s home is portrayed in a way that gives the reader a feeling of alarm. For example, the narrator mentions the house gives him a feeling of “insufferable gloom” (Usher 1). By pointing this out, the reader begins to feel on edge as the connotation of “gloom” is unwelcoming and distressing. The home is also said to have “vacant eye like windows” (Usher 1) which make the narrator

Edgar Allan Poe was a sick man that went through a troubling life full of tragedies. For Poe to deal with this he drank and poured his feelings into his works. Honestly as horrible it is that he had to go through all of that we should be grateful because without his suffering these masterpieces wouldn’t have been fabricated. While intensifying his philosophy for short stories Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflecting the characteristics of Dark Romantic Movement.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, sets a tone that is dark, gloomy, and threatening. His inclusion of highly descriptive words and various forms of figurative language enhance the story’s evil nature, giving the house and its inhabitants eerie and “supernatural” qualities. Poe’s effective use of personification, symbolism, foreshadowing, and doubling create a morbid tale leading to, and ultimately causing, the fall of (the house of) Usher.

After evaluating the work of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, he utilizes with imagery to build up the feeling of terror. First of all, the passage is about an ill man, Roderick Usher, who invites his old friend of his to come meet him. In this passage both him and his sister, Madeline Usher, are the last remaining of the Usher race and is diagnosed with an unnatural illness. The narrator begins to feel terror with the supernatural things going on in the house of Usher and the illness of the Ushers. Although the narrator feels the sense of terror from the moment he entered the house, through the use of imagery, Poe is able to bring emotion to the reader. Throughout the passage, the author continues to build up the sense of terror by asserting the image and setting of both the passage and the atmosphere. For instance, he starts the passage by stating “a dull, dark, and a soundless day...clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens” (Poe 194). In relation to the previous quote, the quote illustrates the image of the atmosphere and the setting of the story. In particular, because Poe expresses the sense of terror by describing the atmosphere as dark, quiet, and gloomy, the reader can get an image of the surroundings and get the feeling of the darkness and horror. In addition, according to Poe, during the first glimpse of the house of Usher, the narrator describes it as gloomy and unpleasant. In particular, Poe states “the shades of the evening drew on… a sense of insufferable gloom” (Poe 194). Additionally, the description of the house adds on to the sense of terror that Poe established in the beginning of the story. Based on the past two quotes stated by the author, the reader can begin to picture a dark and dull day with a gloomy house adding on to the darkness. Lastly, in regards to Edgar Allan Poe, the house of Usher is

In addition, one of the greatest distinctions in Poe’s technique is his choice of “dark” words, which add to the genre of his stories. In both “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado”, these words portray madness, death, fury, and murder to create fear. For example, when the narrator explains how the old man’s efforts to imagine his fears causeless to be in vain, he says, “All in vain; because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel—although he neither saw nor heard—to feel the presence of my head within the room” The usage of such disturbing words like “vain”, “Death”, “stalked”, “mournful”,

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality”- Edgar Allan Poe. In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe expresses his gloomy tone throughout his word choice and setting. Poe’s use of detailed phrases and words with a very distinctive connotation make the story more engaging to the audience. He states, “I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity-an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn-a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued” (415). This quote altogether is rich in the amount of

Poe an extremely creepy writer makes sure his are extra scary. Poe wrote, “Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of malady and had not taken herself to bed”(Page 418 Line 216-217). Plot development in a story can change a tone drastically, this particular story takes a turn down towards dreadfulness. Dreadful stories give dreadful scenes of imagery. Poe speaks, “The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet.

Edgar Allan Poe was a famous writer from the 19th century whose works ranged drastically. Some of his stories were of love such as “Eleonora”, or detective cases like that of “The Purloined Letter”, but what really stood out the most was his tales of supernatural events, insanity, retribution, and death. Poe’s horror stories fascinated the people of the 19th century and readers today with their gruesome and grotesque scenes such as cats being hanged, humans being buried alive, and corpses being mutilated. His tales of psychological darkness and insanity will be analyzed to fully understand the fascination invoked by them, to understand Poe’s maniacal characters, and whether these characters were truly wicked or if society forced them to this point.

Poe himself refined and encapsulated a coherent meaning for the grotesque, and the tale stands as a perfect example of what a good representation of it should strive to

Often times, authors use specific instances from their lives to produce ideas for stories and incorporate them into his or her works. In the gothic times, dark, threatening, horrific, morbid, depressing, bizarre, bewildering, death and insane are just some words that best describe the popular type of literature at that time. One man’s name can summarize these words, Edgar Allan Poe. He is considered to be one of the greatest obscure American authors/poets whom many literary scholars still try to make heads or tails of. People throughout the history often wondered why Poe’s writings are so fantastically diverse and unusual, why his literary style is dark, and why he has so many supernatural connotations in each of his writings. He displays

As a master of short stories of horror, Edgar Allan Poe is knowledgeable, learned and imaginative. He could skillfully manipulate the words in his literary works to create everything people can think of. The masterful use of the symbols, objects intensify the readers’ nerve as the typical elements of horror in Poe’s short stories, and therefore it is also a feature which makes Poe 's stories different from other writers.

In many of his stories, it seemed as though Poe craved to see the pain of sorrow in others. The unstable mind motivates the body to act out in such a violent manner in order to satisfy its desires. In “The Cask of Amontillado” the protagonist, Montressor, “[hearkens] in vain for a reply” of agony from his enemy. Poe wanted to hear the suffering of his adversaries; he needed to hear them feel the pain he felt. His desire to force this punishment onto others, questions his sanity and reason. Frances Winwar, Author of the The Haunted Place, suggests that the discovery of a female body found on the Hudson “roused the sleuth Edgar Allan Poe in his alter ego.” (Winwar 226). The darkness that Poe encountered and experienced was the reason he developed the insane characters in his stories.

When looking at a piece of literature through a psychological approach it is easy to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and superego, which focus on conscious and unconscious behavior. When analyzing many of Poe’s works, critics tend to look through a psychological lens. Specifically in Poe’s The Black Cat. Some critics believe that Poe’s alcoholism is reflected in the piece, but many, such as James W. Gargano “advised the tales readers to avoid the biographical pitfall of seeing Poe and the first-person narrator of The Black Cat as ‘identical literary twins’” (Piacentino 1). It is due to his childhood that Poe’s narrator in The Black Cat subconsciously places animals before humans, thus leading to him to murder his wife.

Edgar Allan Poe was a fictional writer that astonished readers with his many mysterious poems and his tales of horror such as “The Raven”, “Annabelle Lee”, and “The Fall of the house of Usher”.