How Writers of 19th Century Stories Create Tension and Suspense

An important feature of gothic is the horror and terror seen within the text. The two were differentiated by Anne Radcliffe who suggests that terror relies on subtle suggestion which results in the creation of tension and fear, whilst horror is direct and explicit and causes instant fear. A good example of terror is an example of the pathetic fallacy used at the start of chapter 5, during the creation of the monster. It is described as a ‘dreary night of November’ and that the ‘rain pattered dismally against the panes’. This slowly builds tension and helps portray a sense of foreboding. Examples of horror include the ‘yellow eye’ of the monster as it infers decay and the ‘grave worms crawling in the folds of the flannel’ in Victor’s dream about his mother. These features of gothic would have been especially effective on a Victorian audience, as they were not often confronted with this sort of imagery, whereas it can be argued overexposure has caused modern audiences to be less sensitive, or desensitized, to this kind of content.

The Red Room is shown to be set in an old castle. The ‘Red Room’ is at a far end of the castle: “…along the passage for a bit… until you come to a door… through that is a spiral staircase… half way up… is a landing and another door covered with baize. Go through… and down the long corridor to the end… the red room is on your left up the steps." This shows the depth of which one has to venture into the castle to find the ‘Red Room’ likewise this sensation of isolation appears.

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author during the period of Dark Romanticism. Many dark romantics, including Poe, use the motif of insanity throughout their short stories and poems to establish terror and suspense for their readers. Another literary technique Poe incorporates in his writing is eerie imagery, which is often formed by the narrator’s dialogue and the setting. The art of first-person narration within Poe’s short stories is another key component to building suspense and terror. Poe establishes suspense and terror for his readers in his short stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” through the motif of insanity, the use of eerie imagery, and first-person narration.

Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock both use suspense and fear in their pieces of work. The audience can see the way Edgar Allan Poe uses suspense in his pieces, “The Raven” and in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and how Alfred Hitchcock uses similar techniques in his piece, Rear Window. These three pieces of work show how Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock are able to use and set up different aspects to create suspense and fear throughout their stories. In both Hitchcock’s and Poe’s pieces one can see the aspects that they use to create suspense are very similar. Both Hitchcock and Poe use a single character’s point of view, detailed settings, and isolation to create this sense of suspense throughout the story.

Suspense and How Authors Create It “True! - nervous - very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will I say that I am mad?” the author, Edgar Allan Poe, begins his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”. (Does anyone else read it with a bad British accent?) Suspense is not always easy to accommodate a story with, and yet when it is applied, it creates an ominous tone for readers. “The Pedestrian”, too, has a suspenseful plot and a mysterious twist to it.

Edgar Allen Poe had a love for horror, fear, suspense, and killing off his characters. In Edgar Allen Poe's novels The Tell Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado, he uses suspense, irony, and foreshadowing to convey an eerie suspenseful mood and show how the main characters are insane and murderous. His tone of fear and dread help to illustrate his purpose, to scare the reader. Poe uses foreshadowing, suspense, and irony to show off his style of dramatic, archaic horror.

In this story, there are several rooms, each a different color, and each representing something different. The purpose of using the color scheme in stories it to have a deeper meaning put into the story. Poe used colors to put more suspense and meaning into his story. He used a variety set of colors to represent essential and meaningful points within the story. He carefully chose those colors based on how he wanted to display the stages of life.

In the story “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, it shows a prince trying to hide from a plague in his castle with the rest of the royals. In the castle there are seven rooms that are lit in different colors, each room to the readers mean something or have a meaning. Some say that the rooms mean nothing and are just colors that were choosen, but if you look at Poe’s history and the struggles he went through then you will see that those colors do have a symbolic representation of his emotions. Every room in the castle is a representation of what Poe felt throughout his life and still did up to that point.

Have you ever wondered the reasons behind why some horror stories are so sinister? Have you ever read a horror story and told yourself that it would not happen in real life? Have your ever thought that you had a rough life growing up? Poe did not live to see his name really get the big praise it does now for his horror. Most of Poe’s life was filled with death of loved one’s and sadness which made him turn to writing poems and short stories. Edgar Allan Poe’s rough early life, relationships with women, and exposure to man’s evil human nature inspire the plots of his short story fiction.

Luhrmann wanted her room to show her wealth and her characteristics, so the room was not meant to be very over the top or flamboyant. The result was a spacious, high-ceilinged room, illuminated by pale blue and yellow with french windows that open out to the famous balcony. Her room is also dressed with pastel coloured saints and fluffy animals to show that this is also a young girls room where religion is still an important part of her life. This film is the second in Luhrmann’s Red Curtain Trilogy, and this time Luhrmann has chosen to tell the story through the use of language and poetry.

Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are the great Gothic writers of the 19th century. Gothic in the 19th century was considered gritty, grim and barbarous, depending on the author you come across. It is what brought the unconscious mind, also known as altered states, to the surface. The unconscious mind being, the fear you don’t seek. Most of the time, in your dreams—or what you think to be your dreams. The unconscious mind shows you that with great hope, also comes great fear. It makes you think about the darkness you fear and creates it into your Gothic, which is why it scares you. Poe and Hawthorne both made Gothic their own versions of their fears and they did it well.

In the early 1800’s authors used many different authors used gothic elements to inform society the abject fear and fascination can propagate. Erin Morgenstern uses death, pain, blood, entrapment, and curses to illustrate her visions on trepidation and obsession in her novella †he Night Circus. Likewise, Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving used the same elements in there works such as Poe’s The Black Cat and Irving’s The Devil and Tom Walker.

Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are the great Gothic writers of the 19th century. Gothic in the 19th century was considered gritty, grim and barbarous, depending on the author you come across. It is what brought the unconscious mind, also known as altered states, to the surface. The unconscious mind being, the fear you don’t seek. Most of the time, in your dreams—or what you think to be your dreams. The unconscious mind shows you that with great hope, also comes great fear. It makes you think about the darkness you fear and creates it into your Gothic, which is why it scares you. Poe and Hawthorne both made Gothic their own versions of their fears and they did it well.

Gothic literature uses the reader’s senses and emotion to spark suspense and the natural instincts of fear. In the stories A Cask of Amontillado, A Feather Pillow, The Mask of the Red Death, and the book The Night Circus, many of these senses and feelings emerge when the author uses a dark setting or a feeling of abandonment. In gothic literature darkness symbolizes the unknown and alludes to death, leaving the reader feeling uneasy.

During the Romantic Era, authors used suspense in their gothic writings. “The Tell- Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat”, both written by Edgar Allen Poe, are short stories are examples of the gothic literature that was used during this era. Both of Poe’s stories, and many other gothic writings at the time, use purpose of suspense and they express this by describing a series of events and constantly referring to a certain amount of time that is passing.