Edgar Allan Poe's Short Story Effect

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

As it was said in the first part, Lady Rowena and the narrator in ‘Ligeia’ are seeing inexplicable things but it is considered as hallucinations. However, it is actually clues from the author, in order to prepare the reader to see Ligeia appear. At the beginning of the story, Poe takes the time to do an extensive depiction of Ligeia in order to the reader to be on the lookout for slightest resemblance. These “hallucinations” are only sharpening the reader’s attention because a small part of him knows something is happening but doesn’t know what and make him read faster to know the end.

Throughout Poe’s stories, he shows a development of characters through his development of imagery and syntax. As the antagonists’ characters develop, they become more malicious. This development advances the story and allows it to successfully showcase Poe’s idiosyncratic writing style, a suspenseful mood. Overall, his one-of-a-kind style has inspired many authors to write similar types of sober stories and poems. His influence has made a huge impact on schools around the country. Poe’s stories are taught to students to show off his specific type of style. Poe’s use of imagery and syntax influenced the massive industry of dramatic, thrilling, and suspenseful

Poe writes “The Tell Tale Heart” from the perspective of the murderer of the old man. When an author creates a situation where the central character tells his own account, the overall impact of the story is heightened. The narrator, in this story, adds to the overall effect of horror by continually stressing to the reader that he or she is not mad, and tries to convince us of that fact by how carefully this brutal crime was planned and executed. The point of view helps communicate that the theme is madness to the audience because from the beginning the narrator uses repetition, onomatopoeias, similes, hyperboles, metaphors and irony.

Edgar Allen Poe is a critic of short stories and poetry, and often puts his own theories into his writing. Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” falls into this category in the idea of the single effect. The short story starts with the Narrator going to visit his old friend, Roderick Usher because of a letter Roderick writes to him. The Narrator goes to the house and spends time with Usher, but all starts to go array when Roderick thinks his sister is dead and buries her. She comes out of her tomb and jumps at Usher and the House of Usher falls and Roderick dies. Poe argues that all short stories should have a single effect; a feeling the author should make the reader feel. The single effect of “The Fall of the House of Usher” is terror. Poe creates the single effect of terror through the settings, characters, and elements of the story. He does this through the setting of Usher’s room and Madeline’s tomb; through the characters of Roderick and Madeline Usher; and through the element of the Haunted Palace.

Poe's economic style of writing is a key instrument in making this story amazing. In this story, he uses his style to truly bring out what he intended for the story - a study of paranoia. In example, "I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. " it is easy to see that Poe used short sentences, to capture the rapid thoughts of a twisted mind.

Edgar Allen Poe has many standards that helped lay the ground work to his single effect of a short story. He thought short stories ought to be able to be read at one sitting. This allows the reader to get the entire effect of the story at one time, rather than having to stop reading the story and having to recapture the feeling of the story after returning. In writing, he attempted to try to and capture a unifying emotion; the emotion of horror. He felt that the effect of the story should be obvious to everyone who reads the story. Poe’s single effect was attended to show human behavior; to see how human reactions would be if these stories actually occurred.

The main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are death, perversity, revenge and destruction. The settings he employed in the given short stories, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat are Gothic. Therefore, naturally the mood of these stories would be dark and sepulchral. However, this is not a trivial employment undertaken to put the reader in a certain kind of zone.

The structure of a story is the backbone of the story and one of the fundamental aspect that keeps the plot going, but Poe uses the timing of the information to scare his readers. The beginning of these stories start innocently enough, but the reader soon obtains a piece of information that starts the rising action, and also sends chills down the reader's spine. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the nameless narrator begins that story by saying that he is not insane, then promptly convinces the reader that he is insane by contradictions. “The Fall of the House of Usher” starts with the nameless narrator making a house call to a childhood friend, but the reason that he even came was that his friend told him that he was suffering from a mental disease. Coupled with the beginning is the

Edgar Allan Poe, renowned as the foremost master of the short-story form of writing, chiefly tales of the mysterious and macabre, has established his short stories as leading proponents of “Gothic” literature. Although the term “Gothic” originally referred only to literature set in the Gothic (or medieval) period, its meaning has since been extended to include a particular style of writing. In order for literature to be “Gothic,” it must fulfill some specific requirements. Firstly, it must set a tone that is dark, somber, and foreboding. Next, throughout the development of the story, the events that occur must be strange, melodramatic, or often sinister. Poe’s short stories are

Edgar Allan Poe became an author that has grasped the importance of language in his short stories to form the perfect mood and the ability to affect his readers emotionally. In the short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, a man decides to go on a trip to reunite with a friend from his childhood, who suffers from an unknown illness. During the visit, bizarre events occur while staying in his friend’s home. This short story allows Poe to use hints of horror and gothic prose to drive the protagonists into constant mental distress and eventually driving them to madness. Poe incorporates horror and gothic prose such as the unsettling description of the setting, demise, and the fear of paranormal slowly will creep fear upon his characters

Edgar Allan Poe was a famous American author who specialised in short story and gothic fiction. One of Poe’s most famous works was The Tell-Tale Heart which explores murder, mental illness, cruelty and horror. The viewer becomes aware of the unprovoked mental challenges between characters which heightens the tension and fear, as darkness envelops the reader and the strong beating of a heart gradually grows louder. In order to create a more dramatic storyline, Poe has applied a range of narrative techniques including characters, point of view, setting, and theme, to amplify the intensity of the text and to elicit fear within the reader.

Edgar Allen Poe was known for his dark-romanticism writings which evoked horror in readers. Seen specifically in his short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, readers are able to get into the mind of the mentally ill narrator who murders an elderly man, one whom he claimed to love. Poe created conflict in this story by having the narrator admit to loving the man and having him be his caretaker. Conflict, and the story line, is created because it makes readers question why he would commit such a heinous crime as killing and dismembering the man. Readers eventually find out that it is the elderly man’s eye that pushes the narrator to do what he does. The narrator is trying to justify his actions and prove his sanity by explaining how he observes

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.

Edgar Allan Poe, a very famous author, had a hard life when it came to others dying. It seemed as though almost everyone he loved died of tuberculosis. When he was little, his father abandoned him and his family, and his mother later died or illness. He was adopted by the Allan family where he was dearly loved by his foster mother, but not so much his foster father. Later in life, many members of his family had died, and he married his 13 year old cousin, Virginia, when when he was 25. She had later died of tuberculosis, which set Poe over the edge. He started to get drunk more often and gamble more. In Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, he includes love connections, loss of loved ones, and the inevitability of death, which all reflect on to his own life.