The Outsider Literary Analysis

Once a man said “A perfect story, does it exist?” Even though there are many different traits that define a story, even one that’s horror filled, it could still be perfect. Without some traits, it's just a tale with a monster or a tale with supernatural aspects. However, with all of the different traits, a perfect horror story is created, just like "The Outsider" by H.P. Lovecraft. Because of its suspense, setting and the characters search for knowledge, it is a flawless horror story.
At the beginning of the short story "The Outsider" (page 21) a man describes the miserable, dark, and quiet life he has lived. He sets up the entire story with the description of the castle he lives in and its surrounding forest. He describes the fog blanket that coats the trees, almost like a wall keeping him concealed in the castle. He also says, about the setting, that "The stones in the crumbling corridors seemed always hideously damp, and there was an accursed smell everywhere, as of the piled-up corpses of dead generations." (line 13) The

In "The Outsider" (page 23) the man begins to climb a tower connected to the castle that is crumbling and was terribly steep. He says (line 52) "And at last I resolved to scale that tower, fall that I might; since it were better to glimpse the sky and perish, than to live without ever beholding day." The tower he climbs will finally show him daylight and, if he succeeds, he will find the freedom he had always wanted. The man was weak and had no experience climbing, so he had a chance of falling off of the tower to his death. Another suspenseful part of the story is the fact that the narrator does not explain anything about the man. The readers don't know why he is in the castle or why he does not remember much of he past. Not knowing a lot of the plot and the the past experience of the man can be a bad thing, but in some cases, a horror story, it can be a good