Edgar Allen Poe: The Psychology of the Human Mind

A lot of Poe’s stories deal with the psychology of the human

mind, Poe believed that every word included in a story should produce

a different reaction from the audience.

Commentary for “THE PATH OF FALSE RADIANCE”

I chose imitate the depraved storylines and short story style that

Edgar Allen Poe used with such harsh confidence. By using his style I

felt that it helped narrow down my topic selection to the horror and

gothic genre. My Main objective was to write a story in the style of

Poe, using his techniques and conventions from his own stories, and I

have felt that I have done this quite lucratively.

A lot of Poe’s stories deal with the psychology of and behind the

human mind, Poe believed that every word included in a story should

produce a different reaction from the audience, and in believing this

Poe became a “critic” of short stories and was known as the “farther

of short stories”. I feel I have successfully consummated in my story.

From this when you look at one of his pieces work, you can see the

broad vocabulary which I being used, and this is something I

successfully in my opinion used in my work. A dexterity which I

believe Poe has mastered, is the use of foreshadowing, in which the

author drops subtle hints about plot developments to come later in the

story, each of these hints widens the possible consequences and

maintains tension throughout the narrative. For example in “The Tell

Tale Heart”, “I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was

just the reverse of what I had anticipated”. In this story, the

beginning talks about how and why he loves his cat, but with this

sentence, it gives us a hint of what is about to come, by using the

word “reverse” he does not have to explain himself, because it

suggests it is the direct opposite of what he had said before. In my

story, “me a sense of pleasant enjoyment, and the other was to be a

distraught fear, knowing that the devil was to return”. I tried to use

foreshadowing, but I feel that I was not subtle enough, and that I

gave away too much information and the reader from then on could

expect the tormentor was to return. By referring to the tormentor as

being the “devil”, makes the tormenting voices seems as they are

coming from hell – making his sin seem worse then it already is, and

also helps give depth to this supernatural power. A common element in

Poe’s stories is that there are many words which are in italics; this