Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most famous American authors, but many of his works are not explicitly about the American experience. His "gothic" fiction is filled with suspense, the macabre, the grotesque, and the dark side of human nature. However, Continue Reading...
..it is sadomasochism made acceptable to a mass readership by the elimination of any ostensible sexual element. Imbedded in the tale is the psychological journey of an egocentric who derives pleasure from cruelty."(Pritchard, 148) While this explanat Continue Reading...
Poe refers to an ebony clock throughout the writing, Butler, uses a tree in the back yard, as well as the corner of the footboard that he is able to see from the cage. Poe uses terminology that is more complicated in his writing and gives the reade Continue Reading...
Collin Woodward's "Ocean's End -- summary of chapters one, two, Collin Woodward's book "Ocean's End -- Travels Through Endangered Seas" provides a complex explanation regarding the current condition of the planet's natural world. The writer aims to Continue Reading...
Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe's Tamerlane And Other Poems The writing of Edgar Allan Poe will always be connected to the gothic style of literature because Poe used death, mourning and sadness as major themes, and his first published work actually show Continue Reading...
Raven," by Edgar Allan Poe tells the story of a man who laments the loss of his lover while a raven slowly drives him mad by repeating the same word: nevermore. Poe is employing a theme he is most comfortable with -- the loss of love. By skillfully Continue Reading...
Despite the narrator's desperate pleas, the raven says nothing else than "nevermore." Moreover, the narrator now finds himself unable to get rid of the bird and states, "And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting/on the pallid Continue Reading...
Poe and the Imp of the Perverse The Imp of the Perverse Edgar Allan Poe is known for exploring the psychological constructs of horror and terror through his short stories. In Poe's "Imp of the Perverse," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Black Cat," Continue Reading...
Edgar Allen Poe tale of premeditated murder such as "The Cask of Amontillado," readers will immediately delight in the author's skill at suspense. Like wandering through darkened and ancient catacombs, reading "The Cask of Amontillado" stirs the ima Continue Reading...
Poe The worth of earlier works of American literature is sometimes proven by their application to later works. Such is the case with Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and his discussion of the Thirteen Virtues. The absence of such virtues can often Continue Reading...
Poe's Tell-Tale Heart Historical Critique of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" To understand Edgar Allan Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart," it may be beneficial to first understand the historical context within which it appears. Gothic horror was much in vogue with th Continue Reading...
The irony here is that the crime he failed to commit -- the killing of this cat -- led to the narrator's doom. The irony is heightened in "The Cask of Amontillado" because the entire time the narrator, who is looking back on the incident fifty years Continue Reading...
Poe and Faulkner Despite the gap in a century or more between the periods when both Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulker were writing, both Poe and Faulkner have been loosely considered representatives of the "Southern Gothic" style of fiction in Ame Continue Reading...
Poe, Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is perhaps the best-known American entry into the genre of Romantic and Gothic tale, yet it is worth asking what elements actually identify it as such. Spitzer descri Continue Reading...
The narrator cleverly with holds information from the reader. He knows he will die at the hands of a hangman and his is final punishment. The Cask of Amontillado The narrator of the Cask of Amontillado is also presented in the first person voice. Continue Reading...
Haunted Palace is a poem first published by Edgar Allan Poe as a single item but them incorporated into the story The Fall of the House of Usher as a song written by one of the characters, Roderick Usher. It was meant to be symbolic of how the fall o Continue Reading...
Annabel LeeIntroductionEdgar Allan Poe was a master of the Gothic genre and often used themes of love and death in his works to probe the psyche and the line between sanity and madness. One of his most notable poems, Annabel Lee, offers a disturbing Continue Reading...
According to Dougherty, it is generally accepted that death is the "indefinite object" (Dougherty) of "The Fall of the House of Usher" but if we take a moment to read the poem that rests in the text, we might discover "evidence of a more culturally Continue Reading...
The death of a beautiful heroine always leaves someone behind, or the device simply would not work. Poe's narrator laments his loneliness as much as he laments Lenore's death. Poe writes, "Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my doo Continue Reading...
Poe "Always in debt, Poe both sought and sneered at the popular audience of his day." -- Andre Carrilho Poe is said to have believed that fiction was art only as much as it avoided didactics and carried the meaning lightly, leaving much to the ima Continue Reading...
Revenge Edgar Allen Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," Andre Dubus's "Killings," and Louise Eldrich's "Fleur" are all short stories about revenge. Although they treat the theme of revenge differently, the authors show that the exacting of revenge can Continue Reading...
Tell-Tale Heart As the class notes say, "Romanticism or Romantic movement is predominantly pre-occupied with Imagination -- an escape from the world of reality/pain. Poe's story, "The Tell-Tale Heart," ignores Romantic styles of fiction popular dur Continue Reading...
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a psychological thriller because the narrator tricks himself. The least common experience in Ambrose Bierce's story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek," is the hanging. However, the story is presented in such a way that the reade Continue Reading...
He is a selfish man who cares only about his well-being and nothing about others who are dying from the red death. However, there are also literary scholars who say that this story is much more than what it appears to be. Poe may have meant somethin Continue Reading...
The most ironic thing we read in "The Black Cat," is the narrator's unstable state of mind. We should know that our first clue to his madness is his intent to assert that he is not. He writes, "Mad I am not" (Poe Black Cat 182), as he begins to pen Continue Reading...
This is the moment when Victor Frankenstein uncovers the secret that will allow him to create his "monster," and it is one of the most important parts of this novel. Victor has discovered something other scientists have never dreamed of, and the bri Continue Reading...
In this story, we find this terror, especially at the end of the story when Fortunato sobers up. Montresor tells us that the cry he hears as he places the final bricks in the wall is "not the cry of a drunk man" (Poe 94). The drunk man and the crazy Continue Reading...
Obviously, Poe chose to use "Nevermore" or a variation of it in order to create a deep sense of despair and doom. Poe also utilizes what is known as onomatopoeia which refers to a word or several words that imitate a particular sound, in this case b Continue Reading...
.. They are neither man nor woman- They are neither brute nor human- They are Ghouls..." Graham's (2003) analysis of "Bells" show that Poe intentionally creates different categories of bells in order to illustrate the various emotional states indivi Continue Reading...
" But whoops, from inside the wall that he had so carefully reconstructed to hide his evil deed, came a "cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, continuous scream, utterly anomalo Continue Reading...
This short story, as well as Poe's other works, reveals his upbringing and focuses on sick mothers and guilty fathers. Gothic literature, the form of the short story, became known in Britain in the 18th century. It delves into the dark side of huma Continue Reading...
Romanticism American Romantic poet and author Edgar Allan Poe Poe is one of the early American poets of Romantic literature. In the poem Annabel Lee he uses idealism in Romance language to describe a relationship with a woman in first person. A des Continue Reading...
Man of the Crowd By Edgar Allan Poe (1840) The story significantly depicts not only the preoccupation of the 17th hundred London issues and a trend brought by the progressive industrialization of time, but speaks so much relevance in our modern tim Continue Reading...
Paradoxically, based on the outcome of the story, it can be argued that the snake in the crest is not poisonous or else Fortunato's "bite" would have had more severe consequences on Montressor; however, the story ends with Montressor getting away in Continue Reading...
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe may be counted among the leading American writers to have defined contemporary literature. These personalities significantly elevated short story standards, banking of every literary element in order for streng Continue Reading...
You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was" (92). This statement is significant because it reveals Montresor's sense of revenge as well as another motive for his actions - his health. It would seem that Montresor blames Continue Reading...
Symbolism in "The Cask of Amontillado" Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" contains many rich symbols. It is a story deeply shrouded in mystery and destruction for the character of Fortunato, and although Fortunato does not real Continue Reading...
It is difficult to believe such a love exists but it is easy to understand how some people can feel as though their love is unlike any other on the face of the earth. The poem captures the mystery of love with images of the sea, heaven and angels. Continue Reading...
By having all of this, New York is a fun and exciting place. Some other positive experiences of the great city is that Queens has Indian and Pakistani immigrants have created a subcontinent of their own in Jackson Heights; spices, saris and Hollywo Continue Reading...
Dracula The novel "Dracula" was written by Irish author Bram Stoker in 1897. Set in nineteenth-century Victorian England and other countries of the same time, this novel is told in an epistolary format through a collection of letters, diary entries Continue Reading...
