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Literary Analysis : Edgar Allan Poe

Decent Essays

“Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of intelligence.” Edgar Allan Poe delineates the events and character development from his short story flawlessly with this quotation, as the narrator of the story transitions from precautious to mentally unhinged. This tale starts with the narrator boasting. As a person, he took immense pride in his preparatory measures and how vigilant he was. Furthermore, his whole life and all his motives were thrown out the window, as a result of this old man’s demonic eye taunting him. This demonic, taunting eye, an eye quoted as one that “resembled that of a vulture,” (2) instilled dread in the narrator’s heart. He followed up on his distress by making an attempt at removing himself of this eye. He fetched a lantern, and night after night persistently gazed upon this old man, more explicitly his eye, with vast amounts of caution. Each night, biding his time for countless hours, he would release a sliver of light upon the man’s eye, hoping to catch it open, and susceptible. However, this event never occurred, as one fateful night he made a tad too much noise. The old man noticed, but alas, it was too dark for him to see, only to suspect. The narrator stood for hours, waiting for his opening to withdraw himself from the scenario, an opening that never presented itself. This eye prompts the narrator to kill the old man in a panicked paroxysm after failing to eradicate solely the eye itself. With the cessation of this

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