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How Did Poe Build Suspense

Decent Essays

Poe used Grotesque, Guilt, and setting in his Gothic Lit. writings. The stories that Poe has written all these years are some of the most known stories. mainly because of how Poe describes as, and explains, the story so well it practically feels like you’re there inside the story or poem. Poe’s stories have many gothic techniques in them, but in the stories, The House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, and the Black Cat he uses three large gothic techniques that really make these stories what they are and really come alive. In the House of Usher it says “ 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, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.” This piece of the text from the story House of Usher is all about explaining the setting. It is talking about that the season is Autumn, the clouds are low, it’s foggy and he is passing through a depressing part of the country , as it just got more dreary as he finally arrived at the House of Usher. This is …show more content…

On the first page of the Pit and the Pendulum the narrator says “ I was sick -- sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, i felt that my senses were leaving me.” The narrator, in the Pit and the Pendulum, says distinctly that his “senses were leaving” him, which proves that in the beginning he is unsure about everything, he can’t be viewed as very reliable. Also, in the Pit and the Pendulum another moment where he is unreliable is after the trial on the first page “What of remained I will not attempt to define, or even describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber -- no ! In the delirium -- no! In a swoon --

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