The Use Of Diction In Edgar Allen Poe's Villains

Fleming, Thomas. "Poe, Edgar Allan." ["Reader's Companion to American History"]. Reader's Companion to American History, Jan. 1991, p. 846. EBSCOhost, proxygsu-wgt1.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=27829334&site=eds-live&scope=site.

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 has been known for writing stories of mystery and horror. He has

1. He is not a reliable narrator because he is insane. Though he repeatedly states that he is sane, the reader suspects otherwise from his bizarre reasoning, behavior, and speech. ‘‘True—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?'' The reader realizes through Poe’s description of the narrator’s extreme nervousness that the protagonist has in fact descended into madness, as anxiety is a common symptom of insanity. He apparently suffers from some form of paranoia. Besides, the narrator claims that he loves the old man and has no motive for the murder other than his growing dislike of a cloudy film over one of the old man’s eyes. His madness becomes

The dark and eerie tone of the murder story and its unusual setting contribute to the story’s theme of defense of one’s honor and avenging wrongdoing. The haughtiness and conceited attitudes of the two men create an extension of this theme in which Poe wants to show how far some men will go when they receive a blow to the ego. The story’s setting in the

This mental illness causes the reader to feel sympathy for the narrator. Poe was able to connect the reader to an evil character, which is fantastic characterization. I also agree that the theme is self-destruction, as everything that goes wrong with the narrator is caused by himself. Everytime the narrator talks to the reader, he proves that he is mentally ill. “TRUE!--nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story,” (Poe). The narrator immediately states to the reader that he is not mad. However, throughout the story he clearly displays his mental illness. The narrator even says that the “disease had sharpened his senses,” and that he now can hear all things in heaven, hell, and the earth. "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!” (Poe.) The narrator hears the sound of his own heartbeat and misinterprets it as the old man's (another sign of his madness). He then admits to the crime he committed because he could not stand it. He had tricked the police,

"The idea of the protagonist fighting a counterpart occurs so often in Poe's works that critics often suggest that it indicates Poe's attempts to work out, through his writings his own inner conflicts" (Chua 350.) In the short story, the nameless narrator attempts to defend his normality, yet he confesses to murdering an old man. He has nothing against this man except, his pale blue eye. In John Chua's critique, "Critic Charles E. May, however, he interprets the 'eye' bit as an organ of vision but as the homonym of 'I.' Thus, what the narrator ultimately wants to destroy is the self, and he succumbs to this urge when he could no longer contain his overwhelming sense of guilt" (Chua 351.) This irrational fear creates the conflict and leads to the narrator's decision to kill the man. He watches the old man sleep every night for a week. On the eighth night the man hears the narrator and wakes up. The narrator remains in the dark room for hours until he eventually acts on his temptation, screams, and murders the old man. He carefully dismembers the body and hides him underneath the floorboards. Three police men knock on the door, after convincing the officers nothing bad happened they sit down to chat. Suddenly, the narrator hears a noise that gets louder and louder until the narrator freaks out. At that moment, he confesses to murdering the old man and shows them where he hid the body.

is made through his use of punctuation, word choice, figurative language, tone, and sentence structure.

Poe’s use of the first person point of view and a suspenseful tone, present in the mind of the narrator, illustrates his distressed mental state to show the overpowering effects of insanity, which influences the narrator’s perception of the old man as his double. Immense insanity influences the narrator’s identification with the diseased old man, and one night he relates their moans of terror: “I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt and pitied him although I chuckled at heart” (Poe 2). The narrator sees the man as his double through such an emphasis on their similar features, which later becomes crucial as the narrator feels the need for the displacement of his fear. The fact that the old man’s fear is warranted due to his existence in actual physical danger serves to show that the narrator’s feeling of an association with the man through a bond of recurring paranoia is unjustified due to such sane and normal feelings of apprehension in only this circumstance. His perceived association with the man and constant feelings of fear, lead to his logical conclusion – based off of his own feelings of self-loathing and self-hatred – that he would actually be doing the man a great service by killing him, an action in which he also temporarily soothes his own agitations through a transference

The life of Edgar Allan Poe can best be described as interesting. The types of topics he wrote about are death, humanity, and life. In the theme of humanity, the author displays how it is seen in different perspectives. Meanwhile, the theme of life he displays how times passes. The author, Edgar Allan Poe, uses symbolism and good versus evil archetypes to create an emotional mood revealing the theme of death being inevitable.

Edgar Allan Poe is an American poet/ author of many poems and short stories. A few of his most popular include “The Raven,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” All of these stories have a few things in common. Edgar Allan Poe is very famous for using classical allusion in ‘The Cask of Amontillado,” when he references the Masons group. Allusion is an implied or indirect reference especially in literature.(Merriam Webster Dictionary) Poe uses this piece of literary language very explicitly in many of his poems and short stories. Poe also almost always writes about death, or loss of a loved one in his poems or short stories. His most famous poem about death is “The Raven,” where the narrator loses his beloved Lenore.

Figurative language has a greater affect on the reader than you might think; it is undeniable that Edgar Allen Poe is the best at expressing effective figurative language. Poe professionally uses literary devices like similes, which can help the reader visualize the scene. Professional simile by Poe “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness.” (Poe 2).

In literature, one of the most critical concepts we are faced with is interpretation. A reader must interpret what they have read to make sense of the story and can only do so by using elements of the plot, typically presented by the narrator. A reliable and unreliable narrator provide the reader with different, possible versions of the tale, which makes narration a crucial part of the story. An unreliable narrator is a narrator who’s credibility is put into question due to them being either biased, obscure, or unhinged. In most of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, the narrator tends to be unreliable as they are portrayed as insane, fanatic psychopaths.

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.

Poe’s Characterization also helps the reader understand the theme. I believe the narrator is remained unnamed to give a sense that the story could happen to anyone. The theme that everyone has an evil side show all humans are capable of committing a murder and or crime like this. Just like everyone is capable of committing this kind of crime, everyone will also feel the guilt after the crime has been committed. As