More handpicked essays just for you.
Gothic elements in stories of edgar allan poe
Gothic elements in stories of edgar allan poe
Gothic literature in Poe's work
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Gothic elements in stories of edgar allan poe
“What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I Brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes.” This quote on pg. 3, paragraph five shows three gothic techniques in one sentence that are the most distinct techniques Poe uses to enhance his literature. First of all it talks about doppelganger or a twin with the two beast were alike. Then the person telling us the story, this is an unreliable narrator. All while talking about the grotesque eye of the cat, grotesque is the final gothic technique.
A doppelganger or twin is an apparition or double of a living person or thing. Poe uses this technique in the Black cat mostly. He goes into detail about the second cat saying
…show more content…
He says so himself in the black cat “ during which my temperament and character through the instrumentality of the Fiend intemperance had experienced a radical alteration for the worse.” This means that he became moody and mean because of alcohol. So if someone was a mean drunk just about all the time that would make him unreliable to remember and tell his story correctly, which could make the story better and more intriguing to read even if he doesn’t recall a single thing that actually truly happened. In one of his other stories he writes about, the pit and the pendulum the narrator could also be called unreliable. For the most part he is unreliable, because of parts when he is drugged he even says in the story (The Pit and the Pendulum) that “it must’ve been drugged; for scarcely had I had drunk, before I became irresistibly drowsy.” This automatically makes him unreliable because like in the black cat, being drugged and drunk both cause someone to falsely see or comprehend what has happened correctly. So for these reasons in both stories the unreliable narrator helps the story by giving his outlook on things even though you might not be able to trust
In “An Edgar Allan Poe Reader” several stories and poems are revealed but only a few will be considered. In the stories “The Black Cat” Poe writes irony in the story. This certain story is a first person narrative. The narrator shifts from a happy, animal loving, married man. One night the narrator gets drunk and believes that Pluto is not listening to him. So he takes the cat eyes out and hangs the cat. After the cat hanging he decides to kill the cat with an axe. But his wife would not allow it so he buried the axe in the brain. Poe says, “I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain”, (245).
In the writings of great authors it is easy to pick out the literary elements used by them. Edgar Allan Poe is one of these authors. He makes use of the same literary elements in many of his stories. Three of the most used literary elements are irony, antagonists and foreshadowing.
Throughout the short story, Hop-Frog, Edgar Allan Poe uses many gothic elements to create an eerie and dark story. Poe uses gothic romanticism when he describes the setting, when he illustrates the corpses hanging from the chandelier chain and when he discusses the maddening sounds Hop-Frog makes. Poe has the eight orang-outangs wait “patiently until midnight” (163) to play their prank. How he does this is he has Hop-Frog suggest it to the king and his cabinet council. He does this to convey the mood for the story. Because the story is placed at midnight it eliminates mystery and intriguing mood. Hop-Frog also incorporates gothic imagery when he describes the corpses hanging from a chandelier chain. Poe writes “the eight corpses swung in their
Poe uses the narrator’s perverse desires to harm the cat to emphasize his masculine declination. The narrator blames the cat for his actions rather than taking responsibility for his own perverse desires. The narrator states that “the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman” (2501). The narrator is unable to place the blame on himself because he does not possess masculine qualities, which would allow him to take responsibility for his actions. The cat is used to symbolize feminine desires as a black cat is commonly associated with witches, sorcery, and evil. Women were commonly associated with witches and black cats in the eighteenth century. The narrator feels inferior to his wife, which contributes to his increasing feminine qualities. Thus, the cat adds to the narrator’s perverse desires which propels him to lose masculine
Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts on the 19th day of January, 1809. He is born to David and Elizabeth Poe, who are both travelling actors. Edgar’s father leaves the family shortly after his birth and his mother would die not long before his third birthday. Edgar Allan Poe is then sent to live with a foster family, this is where he would inherit the name Allan, although they did not formally adopt him. Poe’s foster parents, John and Frances Allan, support him through most of his adolescent years. Poe will start out writing at a young age and attends college only to be cut off from his foster family after Frances Allan dies from tuberculosis. Once out of college, Poe has a brief stint in the military where he continues to write and becomes a published author at the age of only eighteen with his first poem, Tamerlane. Edgar marries his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1836 after he reunites with her and his Aunt Maria in Baltimore, Maryland. Poe’s marriage to Virginia proves to be short lived when she passes from tuberculosis in 1847. Poe does not live long after his wife’s death, he dies in Baltimore in 1849 at the age of forty. During Poe’s life, he publishes many short stories and poems, with some of his most notable ones being The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Cask of Amontillado. Poe would be well known posthumously due to his famous obituary written by Rufus Griswold. (Hutchisson) (Magistrale)
Gothic literature was developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth century of the Gothic era when war and controversy was too common. It received its name after the Gothic architecture that was becoming a popular trend in the construction of buildings. As the buildings of daunting castles and labyrinths began, so did the beginning foundation of Gothic literature. The construction of these buildings will later become an obsession with Gothic authors. For about 300 years before the Renaissance period, the construction of these castles and labyrinths continued, not only in England, but also in Gothic stories (Landau 2014). Many wars and controversies, such as the Industrial Revolution and Revolutionary War, were happening at this time, causing the Gothic literature to thrive (“Gothic Literature” 2011). People were looking for an escape from the real world and the thrill that Gothic literature offered was exactly what they needed. Gothic literature focuses on the horrors and the dark sides to the human brain, such as in Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. Gothic literature today, as well as in the past, has been able to separate itself apart from other types of literature with its unique literary devices used to create fear and terror within the reader.
With respect to the Gothic conventions present in The Raven, The Black Cat, and The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe’s texts are considered examples of Gothic literature. Through the use of literary techniques and devices, Poe has effectively conveyed thematic concerns of Gothicism. Poe’s texts explore the inept fear of the unknown, the decay of an individual’s character and the psychotic relationship between insanity and the expression and instigation of emotions. The Gothic conventions within his work complement each other and operate in conjunction to express themes related to Gothicism, as ambient setting is achieved with the aid of the Gothic conventions of supernatural motifs and reference to darkness. By creating a pastiche of forms and conventions, Edgar Allan Poe’s works are considered sublime paradigms of Gothic fiction.
A virtuoso of suspense and horror, Edgar Allan Poe is known for his Gothic writing style. His style is created through his use of punctuation, sentence structure, word choice, tone, and figurative language. Punctuation-wise; dashes, exclamation marks, semicolons, and commas are a favorite of Poe. His sentences vary greatly; their structures are influenced by punctuation. Much of his word choice set the tone of his works. Figurative language colors his writings with description. Such is observed in the similarities between two of his most well-known short stories, “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”
A common theme that is seen throughout many of Edgar Allan Poe’s text, is madness. Madness that will make the whole world turn upside down and around again. Madness that takes over somebody’s life. Madness and eye imagery is present in both “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart” by Poe where madness is at first a fairy tale but then ends with a crash back to reality.Both stories share components of murder and insanity, and are very similar, not at first glance but if looked at more closely.
Furthermore, Poe’s plot development added much of the effect of shocking insanity to “The Black Cat.” To dream up such an intricate plot of perverseness, alcoholism, murders, fire, revival, and punishment is quite amazing. This story has almost any plot element you can imagine a horror story containing. Who could have guessed, at the beginning of the story, that narrator had killed his wife? The course of events in “The Black Cat’s” plot is shockingly insane by itself! Moreover, the words in “The Black Cat” were precisely chosen to contribute to Poe’s effect of shocking insanity. As the narrator pens these he creates a splendidly morbid picture of the plot. Perfectly selected, sometimes rare, and often dark, his words create just the atmosphere that he desired in the story.
"Now this is the point. Your fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me"(42 Backpack Literature). Reading such words can create a wide imagination about what the character is truly like. The narrator in the story has an indirect personality where as you read you find out more and more about him.The narrator in Edger Allan Poe's "The Tell- Tale Heart" seems like he makes himself completely insane but as readers we are never told of any psychological problems, if any, that he may have.The characterization by Poe of the narrator crease a puzzle which makes the story interesting. I would characterize the narrator as being secretive, insane and nervous.
The narrator usually is telling the story almost like he is talking to someone, that someone being the readers. Poe sets up “Black Cat” with the narrator telling the readers he is not mad but then his story tells the exact opposite. Poe writes very Gothic style fiction in which Poe 's characters suffer from self-destruction. In the settings in “Black Cat” the narrator has already destroyed himself due to his alcoholism which he calls it a disease. As Poe uses keen detail on how the narrator goes into madness, readers see the narrator at the end as he tells that he is finally able to rest. The narrator says “It did not make its appearance during the night and thus for one night at least, since the introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept.” (700). He is able to rest because of the cat is not there to taunt him. Though he killed his wife it’s the fact that the beast, a name he calls the cat, is not there so he is able to have a great nights rest for the next 3 days. He follows up that quote with “The second and third day passes, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed a freeman. The monster in terror had fled the premises forever” (700)! He has paranoia because of the cat. The cat was unlike Pluto because the cat showed him affection as later on in the years due to abuse Pluto ran away from the narrator. He finds it strange that the cat looks like Pluto, with the gouged eye and all,
Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Black Cat immerses the reader into the mind of a murdering alcoholic. Poe himself suffered from alcoholism and often showed erratic behavior with violent outburst. Poe is famous for his American Gothic horror tales such as the Tell-Tale Heart and the Fall of the House of Usher. “The Black Cat is Poe’s second psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. He added a new element to aid in evoking the dark side of the narrator, and that is the supernatural world.” (Womack). Poe uses many of the American Gothic characteristics such as emotional intensity, superstition, extremes in violence, the focus on a certain object and foreshadowing lead the reader through a series of events that are horrifying and grotesque. “The Black Cat is one of the most powerful of Poe’s stories, and the horror stops short of the wavering line of disgust” (Quinn).
There is one known very influential writing style called Gothic Literature. It is not only considered to involve the horror or gothic element but is combined with romance, superstition, women in distress, omens, portents, vision and supernatural events to name a few (Beesly). The history and beginning of this era is not well known. From a few writers came this writing style that has impacted the world. A famous artists known for this type of writing is a man named Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote many short stories and poems that include horror, gothic, and romance just mentioned.
One of the staples of Poe's writing is the dramatic effect it has on the reader. Poe is known for his masterful use of grotesque, and often morbid, story lines and for his self-destructive characters and their ill-fated intentions. "The Black Cat" is no different from any of his other stories, and thus a Pragmatic/Rhetorial interpretation is obviously very fitting. If Pragmatic/Rhetorical criticism focuses on the effect of a work on its audience, then "The Black Cat" serves as a model for all other horror stories. One of the most intriguing aspects Poe introduces into the story is the black cat itself. The main character initially confesses a partiality toward domestic pets, especially his cat. Most readers can identify with an animal lover, even if they themselves are not. It is not long though before the reader learns of the disease that plagues the main character - alcoholism. Again, the reader can identify with this ailment, but it is hard to imagine that alcoholism could be responsible for the heinous actions made by the main character. In a drunken rage the main character cuts out one of the cat's eyes with a pen knife, and act at which he even shudders. Then, only after the cat's slow recovery from that attack, does the man hang the cat from the limb of a tree. ...