Literary Analysis Of Hop-Frog By Edgar Allan Poe

Usually, fairy tales are in connection to big and illustrious happy endings. But in Edgar Allan Poe’s case, it is evident that they do not exist, for his stories more often than not bear a grotesque demeanor. His life was surrounded by death. All of the women in his life died young, including his mother, sister, and wife. By the age of three, he had experienced what most would not experience until nearly the middle or end of their lives. Living in such an atmosphere allowed Poe to reach deep into his emotions when writing. Edgar Allan Poe was known for his macabre metaphors. These metaphors challenged the reader to endeavor themselves into his simple words; coming to find the gothic elements portrayed. He most commonly portrayed love and death in his poems. Poe is even credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Edgar Allan Poe utilizes symbolism and portrays an envious love tale, ending in tragedy to expose the speaker’s emotional state in the poem “Annabel Lee.”

Edgar Allan Poe uses an assortment of writing elements that reflect an overall eerie and twisted side of hin from his life growing up. In one of his short stories, “Hop-Frog,” the main character, a disabled dwarf named Hop-Frog, introduced as a jester who seeks revenge on his king. Likewise, in the story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, a prince banishes disease from his courts, yet death seems to find its way back inside the castle to seek revenge. Poe portrays the message of tragedy and revenge throughout his stories, using allegories, foreshadowing, and repetitive symbols all contributing to his stories.

Hop-Frog strategizes his plan of letting the king and his ministers to play “ourang-outangs” with the purpose of degrading the supremacy trait of the king and the ministers. In the beginning of the story, the king and his ministers demean Hop-Frog deformities, as well as physically humiliate him and Trippetta. The ultimate scheme that Poe desires to express is if the king and the ministers have the right to humiliate Hop-Frog, then Hop-Frog has the right to exact revenge by doing the same thing. Hop-Frog represents an audacious individual that would disregard blockades in order to resist the destabilized authoritative system.

The events that unfolded in Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The black Cat,” are all due to one person, the narrator. It is because of his Mental state, being an alcoholic, and being abusive to his wife and pets that the fault lies heavily on the narrator. What this paper will entail is all three of the reasons why it is the narrator's fault for what happens in the story and it will come to a conclusion based off the findings in the story.

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.

'' The Black Cat'' by Edgar Allan Poe, has several metaphors that can be identified throughout the story. Example 1: '' Upon its head, with (...) solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast...'' (ln. 268- 269) compares the cat’s solitary eye to fire.

Poe’s exploration of the darker side of human nature in The Black Cat, Hop-Forg and Fall of the House of Usher

"In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed." This quote by Edgar Allan Poe describes his obscure works which have been discussed and criticized in great detail for many years to come. Some readers believe that his works are too dark and eccentric maybe even deathly. Others believe his works to be masterpieces. However, one thing that is not up for debate is the fact that Edgar Allan Poe is a literary genius. Edgar Allan Poe, the creator of the ratiocinative story and the amateur sleuth and leading contributor to the gothic genre, is the greatest author of the mid-nineteenth century.

Poe uses first person narration all throughout this story. He does this by using past tense language as if he was telling you this in person. By using this element of first person narration it is able appeal more to the reader in an emotional way. The reader feels as if the protagonist is

Edgar Allen Poe is known for the various literary devices he uses in his works. One of the most famous devices he uses is symbolism. In many of his stories, including “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe uses symbolism to further develop each story by the messages he writes between the lines. Symbolism is an important aspect of Poe’s many works, seeing as how it allows the readers to make connections within the stories. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe represents symbolism through the title of the short story, the outfit Fortunato wears, and the Montresor family motto and coat of arms.

“Thou art an emblem of the glow/ Of beauty- the unhidden heart-/ The playful maziness of art” (3-5). “To The River___” by Edgar Allan Poe is a poem about a young boy who is enthralled with the daughter of Old Alberto. The origin of the poem may be explained by the fact that Poe wrote it at the mere age of eighteen; a time when emotions flow freely and the mind is yet to be fully developed. The poem describes the young girl as a perfect example of raw and pure beauty through classic literary elements such as imagery, tone, rhyme, and diction. “To the River” is a beautiful poem that compares the elegance of a young woman to a crystal clear flowing river.

The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, depicts a woman ostracized from her town in Puritan New England after her sin of adultery is revealed, although the father of the illegitimate child remains unknown to the town. In The Tell-Tale Heart, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator murders an elderly man in the middle of the night and attempts to cover up his crime. Hawthorne and Poe use the psychological torment and suffering of Arthur Dimmesdale and the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart to convey that hiding one’s sinful actions from society leads to the strong emotions of pain and guilt, demonstrating that one can only end their misery, leading to freedom, by accepting and exposing their mistakes to society.

When looking at a piece of literature through a psychological approach it is easy to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and superego, which focus on conscious and unconscious behavior. When analyzing many of Poe’s works, critics tend to look through a psychological lens. Specifically in Poe’s The Black Cat. Some critics believe that Poe’s alcoholism is reflected in the piece, but many, such as James W. Gargano “advised the tales readers to avoid the biographical pitfall of seeing Poe and the first-person narrator of The Black Cat as ‘identical literary twins’” (Piacentino 1). It is due to his childhood that Poe’s narrator in The Black Cat subconsciously places animals before humans, thus leading to him to murder his wife.

The Portable Edgar Allen Poe, edited by J. Gerald Kennedy, is a phenomenal compilation of works from one of America's greatest writers of the nineteenth century. Published in 2006, the book contains short stories, poems, and letters, written by Edgar Allen Poe. Full of lies, hope, revenge, and guilt, the stories in this assemblage are suspenseful and convey powerful messages.

The title of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” leads the reader to believe the short story is about one black cat. However, almost in the middle of the story, a second cat emerges. Since the title suggest there is only one cat, and the narrator hints the second cat is one of the first cat’s nine lives, comparison of the cats become necessary to see if they are one and the same. For example, both cats desire to be around the narrator and both are missing an eye, but each cat has a major difference in the color of their fur.