...Edgar Allan Poe is a writer of horror stories and poems. His stories, generally follow a common theme and have some similar events throughout his many short stories. Some of his well known books include The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, The Cask of Amontillado, and the System of Doctor Tarr. Most of his work involves the motifs of irony, arrogance, and insanity as well as many other elements commonly seen in horror. Poe weaves a lot of irony into his writing, especially in the name of the characters. For example, In the story of the “Cask of Amontillado” , the main character's name is Fortunado, implying that he is fortunate and lucky. When in the story, he is actually extremely unlucky because he ends up getting killed by the speaker. Poe does this to create the element of surprise, because you wouldn't expect the character named Fortunato to be as unlucky as to die in the end. Another example of the irony in one's name is in “The Masque of the Red Death”. In this story, the prince's name is Price Prosperous. The name “Prosperous” makes you think that he is very wealthy and successful. When in reality, although he is wealthy,...
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...After seeing Edgar Allen Poe's name on this story, I knew that I should expect it to be disturbing in some form or another. My expectations were definitely met as I proceeded to read the story. I must admit that the story was confusing at points because of the language. I don't know much about wine and the way that the story was written made it a little bit difficult to understand exactly what was going on. However, once I did figure out what was going on and what the story was about, I realized that this story has a lot to say about relationships and the human condition. The relationship between the two characters in the story seems to be characteristic of many relationships today. They appear to be friends from an outsider's perspective,...
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...Edgar Allan Poe was a 19th century American writer who is known to be a pioneer of short story writing, a poet and a novelist. Roald Dahl was a 20th century writer who is very famous for his stories for children, but the short story The Land Lady is not one for children but for much more mature readers. The story is about a young lad falling victim to an old taxidermist who stuffs objects of her affection in order to maintain and preserve it forever. Poe’s The Black Cat is a tale that leaves the reader somewhat perplexed. It certainly contains all the ingredients necessary to satisfy the appetite of any Poe enthusiast - an enigmatic narrator, alcohol and the effects there of, mutilation, stagnation, murder, putrefaction and last but not least perversity. There can be seen certain similarities and contradictions between the two short stories. Both short stories mirrors the delicate balance within the human psyche, when closely analyzing how narrative communicates the degeneration of the human mind. Both involve intelligent or calculating madmen with a purpose but not necessarily a motive for their killings. These murderers display a calmness of outward appearance but are obviously blighted by the chaos inherent within their own minds. Edgar Poe begins his short story by showing the unstable mentality of his protagonist. He tells us that he neither expects the reader to believe his confession...
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...Edgar Allan Poe was an American novelist, short story creator, poet, and critic. From 1809 until 1849 cities such as Philadelphia, Richmond, and New York City along with a few stations around London were graced with Poe’s presence. Poe is known for his creation of the modern detective genre. Conflicting sources have stated that while some believe that Poe’s short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” are what truly made him a famous figure, others believe that the poem “The Raven” is what truly pushed Poe to fame....
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...of Poe’s stories, but also share some similarities. In Bradbury’s story, major themes include the influence censorship has on societies, the violent nature of human beings, and the discovery of self identity. Many of the themes in Poe’s stories include the effect of the loss of a loved one and the impacts of death on others. While the themes are not completely connected, Bradbury uses the death of one of Montag’s neighbors to spark a disgust in his current society which in turn leads to his discovery of his self identity. The violent nature of human beings drove others to kill Montag’s neighbor through a violent car chase. In stories such as “The Fall of The House...
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...Comparing and Contrasting Poe and Roald Dahl’s Literature Setting The setting used by Edgar Allan Poe in his literature inspired Roald Dahl's writing style. Edgar Allan Poe is known as the father of modern detective stories. His short stories influenced a great deal of authors that came after him, and one of them was Roald Dahl. Dahl was greatly influenced by the setting of Poe’s stories. He showed this by using some of Poe’s elements in his setting, such as a descriptive environment, time, and word choice. All of Poe’s works have a similar setting in which he describes in detail. For example, in his poem, The Raven he writes, “Once upon a midnight dreary.” (Poe “The Raven” L.1). Poe’s settings are generally at midnight and create a mood...
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...those topics there are different styles and moods or feelings that a style generates with solely the written word. Some genres that might stand a chance and sometimes seem to stand above all may be fiction and/or romance. But there is a new dark horse in the game; his name is Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s writing style and stories have survived long decades and centuries from book bags, libraries, to containers. Now we enjoy and...
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...Hate in Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” and Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “Tell Tale Heart” and in Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover,” both unnamed narrators commit murder and provide the audience with a seemingly unjustifiable reason as to why they murder their loved ones. In “Tell Tale Heart” and in “Porphyria’s Lover,” both narrators attempt to pose to the audience that they are not insane and effectively accomplish this through their tone and explicit narration. Two of the recurring themes within both Poe’s short story and Browning’s poem are madness and the tension between love and hate. The themes are reinforced through calm tone and passive tone and through the characterization of the narrators. In Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart,” the narrator opens up the short story denying the fact that he is insane and defends his statement by confessing to killing an old man in a very calculated and precise manner with the simple motivation being his fear of the old man’s “eye of a vulture.” The narrator goes through with his plan of murdering the old man and hides the body only to be engulfed by a feeling of guilt which leads him to confessing his act to the police. Throughout the short story, the narrator continues to tell the audience that he is not insane due to his “sharpened … senses” and his “calm” way of telling the whole story, yet it is his tale of murder that contradicts the very claim that he attempts to defend throughout the short story. The narrator’s...
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...Debra Bronstein English 1B Short Story Essay Prompt Essay Due: Monday 10/15 at the beginning of class (100 points) Please write a 4-5 page essay. All papers should be typed, double-spaced, 12-point font (Times New Roman), with one-inch margins. All papers must analyze how the rhetorical/formal/symbolic/narrative elements of the short story contribute to your understanding of the text. Please review these terms from your literary terms quiz and your class notes to remind yourself how authors deploy them in the stories. Please choose one of the following topics. Note: I ask a lot of questions within each of the topics because I want to give you many options to consider; however, this does not mean that you have to answer all the sub-questions. Use them as guides to jumpstart your thinking. 1. Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Jewett’s “A White Heron,” Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” track a particular symbol throughout the short story. Focusing on one of these stories, show how the author uses the development of the symbol in order to reflect the demise or spiritual growth of the main characters. Hint: for “The Things They Carried, you can focus on the word carry rather than on a specific individual symbol. 2. Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both narrated by unreliable narrators who go crazy. Focusing on one of these stories, how does the author portray insanity...
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...Most people enjoy reading short stories and their rewritten versions. The main genres admired by readers today are comedy, romance, mystery, etc. The original version of the short story Tell Tale Heart has a greater impact on the reader than a rewritten version of the story. There are similarities in the mood and irony, while there are differences in the pacing and character development. To begin with, there are similarities in the mood and irony of the text. First, the mood of Poe’s text begins with a calm, stable mood. As it approaches the end of the story it becomes more and more agitated. In Smith’s version of the story, the mood begins calm like any normal day for a nosy neighbor like Elaine. As this story approaches its end the mood becomes more anxious, similar to Poe’s. Poe used words such as “ dreadfully nervous, and pale”. To describe the mood of the passage. Smith uses words like “terror-stricken and washed out”. These words help emphasize a similar indecisive mood....
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...instance, within Edgar Allen Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” symbolism is used heavily throughout this short story and are linked to some commonly known material. The “Masque of the Red Death” focuses on a chaotic theme of death and chaos. Poe uses symbolism to portray his theme through the seven chambers in the prince’s home and these rooms together are linked by colors and Biblical references. In “Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allen Poe uses symbolism to establish the chaotic theme represented through the seven chambers. First Poe had used symbolism within this short story to establish...
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...Gothic Horror Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous American writers, editors, and literary critics. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. The “Black Cat” is about a crazy man who torchers his cat and ends up killing it but the cat comes back to haunt him. The “Masque of The Red death” is about a terrible disease that has struck the country but no one seems to care. He decides to let the kingdom take care of itself while he and a thousand of his favorite knights and ladies shut themselves up in a fabulous castle to have a party. After the last guest enters, no one else can get in the Prince has welded the doors shut. That means no one can get out. Anyways when the clock...
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...Poe’s Grim and Dreary Style Many writers express how they feel by the way they write and how they see the world around them. Edgar Allan Poe is no exception to the rule. During the early years of Edgar Allan Poe, his father abandoned him, his mother, and two siblings (Marshall 42). At a young age, he witness his own mother cough up blood and die slowly due to tuberculosis (Marshall 42). He was later adopted in 1811 by a couple who did not even want him (Marshall 42). Some would say his talent was molded from the tragic events throughout his life, which lead him to write. Poe was an American poet and writer whose work still lingers in many individuals’ imaginations. He was very somber in many of his poems and when writing. Throughout his life,...
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...you automatically think of a dreary, scary story. This is not all Poe is known for. Poe has written love stories in his time such as Annabel Lee and the poem “For Annie.” Poe lived a poor lifestyle because writers did not make a great deal of money during his lifetime. Despite the fact that he was poor, Poe still managed to have a fulfilling love life. His foster family did not approved of him because he did not follow the family trade. Instead, he used women to satisfy his desire to be accepted. After Poe died a rivalry of his gave him a bad reputation which in the end only helped Poe’s work become much more famous. This enemy of Poe’s deemed him a drunk womanizer, which you will see is not true, and is only in retaliation because Poe’s harshly criticized this man’s work. Poe lived in the Romantic Era, thus inspiring the theme of many of his works. Romanticism was a movement in the late 18th century of the arts and literature. It was the theory, practice and style of romantic art, literature, and music. The Romantic Movement was based on moving away from the classical style...
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...to rework my initial plan to merge two stories together, and I choose to do an imitation of “A Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. I wanted to put a much different twist on the story, by making the main character an estranged and battered wife and mother. I knew that I wanted to imitate the short story with a woman’s prospective so I decided to look up why woman kill, their husbands specifically. Abuse came up several times. I felt like this related to the problems with domestic violence today, so that aspect made the plot more contemporary. I also wanted to make a somewhat somber plot, in the beginning and then slowly reveal how a broken woman goes mad. Her husband was the main catalyst in his own death. I hinted multiple times in my imitation that she was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. The beginning the story is prefaced the morning after she kills her husband and then buried him beneath the floor boards, much like Edgar Allen Poe’s character did with the “old man” he murdered. She slowly goes more insane, and she ends up snapping in the end, like Poe’s character did. The comments she makes to herself after she kills her husband are almost self-satisfying, like she is content with the kill. I wanted to make the tone and mood just as eerie as Poe makes his short story. The only emotional change I made between the opposing characters was that Poe’s character felt somewhat guilty, and the main character in my story had a nervous breakdown, ripped up the...
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