How Did Poe Build Suspense

Using imagery, particular word choice, and much repetition, Edgar Allan Poe has been widely known for his incredible ways of adding suspense to his work.

This story is a gothic tale because Poe talks about the gloomy night and the decaying surroundings. He also brings up a haunted house, the potential of burying someone alive, and dying of fear.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great example of Gothic Literature because of the way the story was

Edgar Allan Poe is known for his knowledge of how to build and use suspense, but how does he do it? Poe has done many works in his time as a poet and he has mastered suspense in writing these works. He knows when and how to use suspense. In all of his story you can find at least one sentence of suspense. Edgar Allan Poe uses craft elements like short and choppy sentences, the setting, and very descriptive language to build suspense in his works.

To properly convey these complex themes, Poe employed the use of the Gothic Tradition. That is to say, he used elements such as the supernatural, and traditional gothic settings to create a mood in his story to help the reader become immersed in the story. The Fall Of The House Of Usher is told in the first person, with a nameless narrator who is never properly described. This helps the reader to feel part of the story, as it is as if they are listening to themselves describing the story. Poe has also set the story in a very claustrophobic way, including

Edgar Allan Poe uses irony to create suspense in "The Cask of Amontillado," to create a dark, dangerous short story. The protagonist, Montresor, plans to seek revenge on Fortunato, who insulted him, by killing him. Poe uses dramatic irony in the first paragraph by writing that Montresor is planning to kill Fortunato and get away with murdering him. The example of dramatic irony creates suspense, due to only the reader and Montresor knowing that Montresor is premeditating Fortunado's murder. Verbal irony is utilized to create suspense when Poe writes of Montresor and Fortunado making toasts, and Montresor saying, "And I to your long life" to Fortunado (Poe 347). Completely aware that he is going to murder Fortunado, yet Montresor toasts to Fortunado's

Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ both serve a highly horrific purpose which is both good examples for the gothic. The strongest example of gothic is ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ as it established the extreme horror intense and shows the gothic scene of the house.

Have you ever read “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe? It is a short story about a man whose mental state deteriorates over time. The narrator loves the old man, however he has a deep hatred toward the old man’s vulture-like eye. This essay will be explaining the ways Poe keeps his readers in suspense. Edgar Allan Poe uses time, repetition, and descriptive language to set the pace, tone, and mood.

In fact, the first five paragraphs of "The Fall of the House of Usher" are devoted to creating a gothic atmosphere. An ancient, decaying castle paints an eerie, moldy picture. The surrounding moat seems stagnant and sullen. The time period also ties into this mood. It's autumn and the weather is cool and dreary. How many horrors take place in the daytime? Not many, and this story is no different. It's dark, or at least semi-dark. Immediately Poe entraps the reader. There is a sense of being confined within the walls of the Usher house. Outside a storm is raging and inside there are mysterious rooms where windows suddenly whisk open, blowing out candles. Creaking and moaning sounds fill the air. The wind is whipping, and the landscape is barren. This is gothic writing and these are its trappings. The darkness of everything symbolizes death to come. Upon entering the gothic archway of the deteorating mansion, the narrator is led "through many dark and intricate passages" filled with "somber tapestries" and "ebon blackness". Over everything, Poe drapes his atmosphere of sorrow and irredeemable gloom. He evokes his primary effect, the anticipation that some fearful event will soon transpire.

Mr. Poe was born in Boston on Jan 19, 1809 as the second child. His father soon abandoned their family then a year later his mother soon died, finally being an orphan at the age of three. Later on he went to go live with the Allan’s, who brought him to England and provided him with a strong education, but were resistant to his literary aspirations. He went to college at University of Virginia but, after a year he dropped out because of lack of money from gambling and not keeping in touch with the Allan’s. After, college and being discharged from the army he started writing most of his work plumbed the depths of human fears and desires, often allowing the stories to fade away then

An example of how Edgar Allen Poe uses flashback to develop the character and suspense is his description of how he mistreats Pluto, his beloved cat. He has a history of lashing out at his wife and several other animals but had always honored and respected Pluto. On one particular night, returning home quite drunk, the narrator feels Pluto is avoiding him. In an angry stupor, he grabs the cat with such force that the cat bites him on the hand. He feels that he has now been possessed by a demon. In retaliation to the animal’s primal instinct to protect itself, the narrator takes out his pen knife and cuts out one of the cat’s eyes. The next morning, the narrator feels guilt and remorse about his drunken actions. The narrator begins to drink

In the rising action of the story, Poe depicts should us this peculiar clock which makes “nervousness and folly” around those visitors. Anticipating this clock’s sound each hour provided for people great uneasiness and they prefered with not think of it. This is imagery for the constantly ticking away time in people’s lives. Furthermore, the reason it makes people uncomfortable to contemplate in this quote, “the giddiest grew pale”. This clock gives incredible rising action when we enter the climax because the reader comprehends how a life is passing.

The opening of the story depicts and sets the gloomy atmosphere of the short story “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone” (Poe 109). That is, rather than having the transcendentalist ideas that build to an optimistic ending, The Fall of the House of Usher presents a lifeless plot that comes to be gloomier as the story develops. For instance, the description of the house and its residents are presented as a sarcastic criticism of that

Edgar Allen Poe is recognized as a great writer of Gothic. Poe stories all relate to each other in some way. Most of his short stories consist of mystery and horror. The two stories I choose was the “The Black Cat” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. They both can be compared to each other by their setting, characters, and theme.

Poe’s writing style was much like that of Hawthorne’s, but drew from the darker side of romance creations. This gothic mood believed in the dark truths of the human heart, which are the ends and motivations for many of his stories. Human corruption and violence ends in murder in “The Black Cat”. Gothic writings move more into the supernatural side, which lets observer of the see a living person in the picture at his first, sleepy glance.