How is tension created in The tell tale hearts and The black cat?

How is tension created in The tell tale hearts and The black cat?

In this essay I am going to study the short stories ‘the black cat’

and ‘the tell tale heart’ written by famous writer Edgar Allen Poe and

see how tension is created in the two tales.

Both tales are written in a gothic horror genre and Poe’s intention

for this was to chill and unsettle the reader, to make them anticipate

what was going to happen next, as if it was really happening. Poe

succeeds in doing this by the content of the tales, partly being the

supernatural and the tension he creates, which plays a major role in

both. He creates this tension by using several different techniques

including plot, characterisation and many stylistic devices.

One way that Poe creates tension is the plot of the story and where is

it set. ‘The tell tale heart’ is set in the middle of nowhere and late

at night, when it is dark outside. This automatically makes the reader

uneasy, as nighttime and darkness is symbolic of dark and bad deeds.

Poe mentions more than once that it is set ‘about midnight’ and that

it is dark, ‘black as pitch’, he keeps reminding the reader of this,

as he knows it is symbolic and the reader will be wary of this.

Criminals will often act upon this time, as they are more likely to

get away with the crime, as they cannot be seen as easily. People are

most wary of little things, sounds and sights like shadows in the dark

and will be on edge. Darkness and nighttime are famously scary and

unsafe, portrayed in novels and films as when everything bad happens

and now is the stereotypical view. The darkness seems like a

disability, vision is not fully available, and the brain starts so

wander as to if anything could be round the corner...

... middle of paper ...

...it his name.

Both the stories were written more than 100 years ago, in 1843. They

are so old that when they were written no other genre of story like it

was around at the time. They were original for the time they were

written and set the standard for future writers. Poe invented this new

genre and his writing skills and techniques form scratch and were the

first chilling, gothic horror stories ever written, which adds to the

reason of why they are so effective. Because no one had ever read

anything like it before, and in a scense the stories were ahead of the

time because of the effect they had.

Poe’s work is popular worldwide and still his stories of this genre

appear chilling as they are written in a old style that is not used as

much today, but this is effective and one knows that they would have

had even more impact at the time they were written.