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...
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...
Tell-Tale Heart The Reflection of the Soul in Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" Edgar Allan Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" appeared a decade after Gogol's "Diary of a Madman" in Russia and twenty years before Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, whose protagonist e Continue Reading...
Edgar Allen Poe's 1843 short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" is about a young man who becomes mortally obsessed with an old man's creepy eye and ultimately kills him. Thomas Hardy's 1902 poem "The Man He Killed" is about a soldier who has become used to 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 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...
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...
She also learns, too late, that the jewels and the life she coveted so long ago was a sham. Hence, the symbolic nature of the necklace itself -- although it appears to have great value, it is in fact only real in appearance, not in reality and the h Continue Reading...
Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Fennimore Cooper, Mary Rowlandson, Walt Whitman) describe writing style, a discussion litera Continue Reading...
The Raven Poe's famous poem, "The Raven," to most readers is a straightforward yet haunting, chilling tale of the loss of someone loved, and the troubling emotions and inner sensations that go along with a loss, no matter how the loss occurred. In Continue Reading...
Edgar Allan Poe and Hannibal Edgar Allan Poe was more than a horror storywriter. He was a person that delved into the human psyche and created a psychological thriller that haunted the reader's mind well after the conclusion was made. Poe has delve 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...
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...
" 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...
Poe establishes at this point how in the viewpoint of an insane individual, the line distinguishing insanity from rational thinking becomes blurry. Indeed, the Mad Man's illusion that he is not insane and was fortunate to experience a "sharpening o Continue Reading...
Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe uses vivid dialogue to give his characters life. He begins his tale by speaking directly to the reader. He pulls the reader in by saying that "You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however 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...
Essay Topic Examples 1.The Theme of Revenge in "The Cask of Amontillado": Explore how Edgar Allan Poe uses the theme of revenge to drive the plot and character development in "The Cask of Amontillado," analyzing Montresor's m Continue Reading...
Fiction's Come a Long Way, Baby The development of fiction from its nascent stages until today's contemporary works is a storied one. Many features mark contemporary fiction and differentiate it from the classics of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries Continue Reading...
Young Goodman Brown The short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne has been a saga of great interest to scholars, students, writers and ordinary readers, over the many years since it was published. The story stands out as classic example of Hawthorne's tale Continue Reading...
Uncontrollable Urge: The Effect of the Imp of the Perverse on Manifestations of Horror and Terror In many of his works, Poe often explores fears through a combination of horror and terror. Through intricate storytelling, Poe explores the effects th Continue Reading...
The narrator in this tale internalizes "elements of anxiety and fear pushed to an unrelenting extreme" (269). We can see this extreme in the narrator's thought processes as he continues to watch the old man's eye. For instance, he says: It was open Continue Reading...
According to McDermott, this direct lineage and relationship that both novels owe to Faulkner is tremendous. The murder of Homer is a flashback and a continuation of Emily's dysfunctional relationship with her father. Just as she later holds onto H Continue Reading...
American Literature Listen to Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God preached. Discuss in the discussion group. Jonathan Edwards gives us a perfect example of the Calvinist beliefs of the Puritan settlers in early New England. Edwards studied theolog Continue Reading...
" It just so happens that the Carnival is in season, what better time to launch such a plot? This dramatic irony allows the audience to perceive something that Fortunato does not -- the relentless pursuit and planning that is occurring as Fortunato e 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...
.. With these materials and with the aid of the trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche." In "The Cask," both insanity and murder operates to create a feeling of the grotesque all throughout the story. Moreover, these themes w Continue Reading...
This sentence, although it talks about bowels, is really describing the mother's love of the baby. This story is written like a detective story. It is very difficult to determine which woman is telling the truth and to determine if King Solomon is Continue Reading...
In the beginning, the narrator describes that the house has not yet fallen, but that the decay of the building is so extreme, it is unlikely to remain upright for long. The same is true of the people inside. They live in a kind of living death, wait Continue Reading...
Humor in Literature American literature is unique in that the attitudes of the works tend to reflect the spirit of the nation and of her citizens. One of the trademarks of American literature is that authors display a tone that can be very serious, Continue Reading...
In Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," the setting is of a very different nature, but also concerns life, death, and the irony that often accompanies the interaction between the two. The main character and first-person narrator, Montresor, leads Fortu Continue Reading...
Essay Topic Examples 1. The Power of Revenge in "The Cask of Amontillado": Investigate the central theme of revenge in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Discuss Montresor's motivation for revenge, the premeditation Continue Reading...
9th Grade I asked the class to find biographies and research on the life of Edgar Allan Poe over the weekend. Today, I want four groups of 5 students each to take 5 minutes in groups and list problems that Poe may have had in his life. One student f Continue Reading...
Goodman Brown/Lottery Literature is frequently employed as a device for social and political commentary. This is certainly true in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." Both these stories darkly satirize t Continue Reading...
individuals have struggle accepting change. It takes quite some time for one to adapt to this. For regions of a country or even whole nations, change may take decades or possibly centuries. Edgar Lawrence Doctorow can certainly relate to this Born Continue Reading...
El Dorado by Edgar Allan Poe Susan Glaspell worked as a legislative reporter for Des Moines Daily News between 1899 and 1901, during which time she witnessed and covered the trial of Margaret Hossack, accused of attacking and murdering her husband. Continue Reading...
Southern Stories Revelation of the Intrigues of Classism and Racism The two stories, William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily and Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is hard to find are southern literature. Southern literature share common elements such as fa Continue Reading...
and, as no two individuals can have had completely identical experiences, it follows that no two individuals can view events in exactly the same way. Thus, they will make different choices, and choose different course of action. So important to Mic Continue Reading...
Somehow, this made the story illustrate Fortunato's character and somehow has given me some thoughts on Fortunato's character, reasoning why Montresor bears bitterness to Fortunato. The next scene in the story is the place where the crime will happ Continue Reading...
