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1. In what ways is “the cask of amontillado” a gothic story
1. In what ways is “the cask of amontillado” a gothic story
The gothic era in literature edgar allen poe
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The term gothic is often portrayed as dark, mysterious, horrific, and suspenseful. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century gothic writing became a successful genre in the world of fiction. Many fictional works during this time period were gothic and known for being dark and creepy leaving the reader in a state of pleasing terror. Edgar Allan Poe became one of the most popular gothic poets of his time, and mostly known for the unusual and disturbing themes throughout his poems. A common theme throughout his two works, “The Raven” and “The Cask of Amontillado”, was sanity and where the narrator lacked thereof. “The Raven” begins with a man being disturbed by a knock at his door and is eventually driven mad by a raven who can only recite the word “nevermore”. Likewise, Montresor is narrating a murder he committed fifty years previous in “The Cask of Amontillado.” Each of these works, written by Poe, has a dark underlying theme. Born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe faced many hardships in his life beginning at nine months old, when his alcoholic father abandoned his mother and other two siblings. Once Poe had lost his wife Virginia to illnesses, his poems were noticeably growing darker and more gruesome, and her death “haunted Poe until the end of his life” (Erica). These are only a few hardships Poe faced throughout his life, and each one led him to become a more dramatic and disturbing person. Every suffering he faced was used as a prompt for his writings, and throughout his work he places his hurt and depression into each piece based off his own life. His famous poems are the results of his insanity based off his unfortunate life. Even though Poe lived a challenging and stressful life, his poems ... ... middle of paper ... ...clude the creepy setting of the story, the gruesome details, and the tragic death of a seemingly innocent man. Poe describes the walls of the basement being covered in white mineral that choke up Fortunato leaving a disturbing image in a reader’s mind. Then he depicts the family shield in grave details to make his point of the of Montresor’s dominance over Fortunato. The most disturbing part of the story is when Montresor takes pleasure in hearing Fortunato plead for mercy. Not only was Fortunato in altered state of mind from the amontillado; he was being murdered brick by brick of the enclosing wall. Mentall disturbed people such as Montresor take pleasure in pain, anxiety and any other negative emotions. These two fictional works of Edgar Allan Poe are similar because they portray mannerism of the Gothic genre of writing during the time period of his existence.
The first topic to be discussed will be the similarities between the two tales. In both of the stories the murderers knew the men that they killed. Also, in both stories the murderers hid the body of the victim. An important factor in a tale about murder, is that the killer has a motive to commit the crime. There are plenty of similarities between Poe’s stories, just as well, there are many differences between the tales also.
When I think of traditional gothic style writings, I picture dark, creepy, and gloomy situations. Most writings in a traditional gothic style may cause your heart to beat a little more rapid and give you chilling goose bumps. However, I feel that when I read writings by Edgar Allen Poe the ‘gothic’ theme is taken to the next level giving a petrifying suspicion. Poe leaps past ordinary and traditional writing by including symbolism within words, mysteries with hidden meanings, and more dramatic and horrifying conditions than normal. David Galloway says, “Poe was a master of intensity of the picture he is able to construct from essentially ‘Gothic’ materials. But Poe attempted to go beyond the popular gothic tradition, and deplored the meretricious use of terror and grotesquerie.” I believe that the variety of Poe’s works not only met the requests of the marketplace, but was also an expression of Poe’s own thoughts about life in a deeper meaning.
Many describe Edgar Allan Poe’s life as a mire tragedy that produced a genius. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19 of 1809 in Boston Massachusetts. Poe was described as a handsome or an attractive man; “Poe, himself, is a very good looking fellow” (Simms qtd. in The Poe Log). His clothing was described as simple and black; “He dressed always in black, and with faultless taste and simplicity” (Weiss). He had pale color skin with a good complexion. His hair color was as dark black as a raven’s wing. When he was three years old his biological parents, David and Elizabeth Poe past away. David and Elizabeth Poe had three children Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. When his parents died he was adopted by his step mother and father the Allan’s; they were tobacco exporters of London. Poe lived a luxurious childhood, going to good academic schools, even moving with his family to London, and continued his studies at a boarding school. When he was a teenager they moved back to US, because the Allan’s tobacco company was failing. He continued his high school career at local private academies. There he had a huge crush on a school friend’s mother. The mother die and Poe took it personally. After he was all grown ...
Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother and father where both actors, David and Elizabeth Arnold. They had financial difficulties, which soon caused the father to abandon the family. Poe's mother soon had another child; however, she was having physical conditions causing her death on December 8, 1811. Becoming orphans, both Poe and his sister were split up in family friend’s houses. Poe went to live with the Allan's. As Poe grew up he started having problems with his John Allan, his foster father, which caused future problems. Poe's first step to start a career was attending the University of Virginia in 1826. "Allan failed to provide Poe with enough money for necessities such as furniture and books and Poe soon ran up a tremendous gambling debt and began drinking, despite his very low tolerance for alcohol" (Loveday 2). After a time he moved to Boston, "The Great Literature Capital." What was helping Poe start of his career, where the big hopes of one day becoming a writer despite the harsh life he had since he was little. Poe's work has had an impact on literature. Throughout his most famous pieces of literature, "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Raven," and "The Cast of Amontillado," we see common factors that influenced these types of works through his plots and characters. "Madness, alienation, and mankind's long love affair with morbidity were the his subjects, and he didn't mind admitting to being more to being more than half in love with easeful death, to mangle a line from his favorite poet, Tennyson," (Allen 2).
Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting poems and morbid stories will be read by countless generations of people from many different countries, a fact which would have undoubtedly provided some source of comfort for this troubled, talented yet tormented man. His dark past continued to torture him until his own death. These torturous feelings were shown in many of his works. A tragic past, consisting of a lack of true parents and the death of his wife, made Edgar Allan Poe the famous writer he is today, but it also led to his demise and unpopularity.
Edgar Allan Poe was a gothic writer living in the early 1800’s. Poe had a very hard and tough life and in his stories you could see what a troubled man he was. He set the path for writers today. Literature would not be the same without Poe’s influence. Most of his stories are gory and relate to death as in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Raven. They are some of Poe’s best works. Poe uses gothic elements within “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Raven” to portray the dark side of human nature.
To truly understand Edgar Allan Poe’s work, you must understand some of the hardships he had to go through. When Poe was just two, his mother died of tuberculosis. Long before his mother died, his father had left his mother, his siblings and him to fend for themselves. His two siblings and he, were left with nobody when their mother died. The children were separated from each other.
“Born in Boston on January 19, 1809 to parents David and Elizabeth Poe, Edgar Allan Poe is a well-known author in today’s literature” (Biography…). “Edgar Allan Poe’s works of poetry and short fiction have been in print since 1827” (Poe’s…). Most of Poe’s stories reflect on his lifestyle as a child as well as his life in adulthood. While Poe was only in his mere days of childhood, his mother died and father abandoned him. This tragic event helped to create the dark, morbid stories he wrote. Edgar Allan Poe grew up in most of his life without his parents, which is a vital part of any child’s life. Stories and poems written by Edgar Allan Poe are dark, eerie, and suspenseful. Many people who read stories by Edgar Allan Poe get a great sense
Edgar Allan Poe has a unique writing style that uses several different elements of literary structure. He uses intrigue vocabulary, repetition, and imagery to better capture the reader’s attention and place them in the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s style is dark, and his is mysterious style of writing appeals to emotion and drama. What might be Poe’s greatest fictitious stories are gothic tend to have the same recurring theme of either death, lost love, or both. His choice of word draws the reader in to engage them to understand the author’s message more clearly. Authors who have a vague short lexicon tend to not engage the reader as much.
They’re very similar to each other, they have a mystique about them, both thrilling and creative, that captivates the reader. Reading Poe’s works will put you on edge, reading of gothic manners and large victorian columns, vampire-like creatures in the dark. Or, stay captivated while reading Cortazar’s stories that will make create questions about what is real and what isn’t, and leave readers craving an extension of the tale.
Gothic literature is known for captivating readers by bringing to light the dark side of humanity. The Gothic possesses many key elements such as paranoia, anxiety, death, etc. It strikes fear and suspense in the reader not by creating fictional monsters, but showing the reader the types of monsters that lurk within human beings. In “the Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, various themes of the Gothic are present throughout the short story such as gloom and doom, darkness, and madness. These elements are used to enhance the central theme of the piece: revenge. I will argue that Poe uses a number of the Gothic elements to craft an intense dark tale of revenge: an unreliable narrator, madness, darkness, a haunted setting, and evil/devil
Young, naive, and eager to prove his brilliance, Edgar Allan poe was brought out into the world on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts (Meltzer 14). To the modern world, he is known as a brilliant writer, poet and critic, however in his time, he was bombarded with difficulties. Similarly to some authors, Poe’s writing was greatly influenced by his poor socioeconomic standing. His style of writing can be characterized as quite dark as it is the product of an impoverished and hardship riddled life. Alcoholism, death, and illness were no stranger to Poe, either. These themes, being such an integral part of his life, shaped much of Poe’s poetry into a manifestation of what is known as dark romanticism (Buranelli 22). Additionally, Poe grew
“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” Gothic writing uses multiple elements to give it a scary feel. Poe does this by using a combination of these characteristics. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe includes gothic characteristics to prove no one can escape death.
Edgar Allan Poe wrote five short stories that are very popular. “The Black Cat,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Raven,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are the stories that I found similar. Poe’s stories were written between 1839 and 1846. All of them are similar in a way that they involve madmen. These men think they are sane, but they end up doing horrible things. Poe’s writing style is very dark. We can consider what he is writing to be gothic.
Knowing the basics of Poe’s background is essential to learning more about his characters and his stories. Much of his work is stemmed from his own life experiences. Edgar Allan Poe was born to Eliza and David Poe Jr. in Boston in 1809. Even in his infancy, Poe faced poverty, illness, and other hardships. His parents were both actors and moved Poe and his two siblings frequently for work. David Poe Jr. was a known alcoholic Before Poe was a year old, his father had abandoned the family. His estranged father and his mother both died before...