Rough Draft

In the three short stories, “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Prey” by Richard Matheson, and “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, all partake in the use of grotesqueness and violence. All of the Gothic Elements in the short stories relate back to the story’s main idea or purpose of the story. Also it highlights the theme the author is attempting to intertwine with the story to the reader. To start off, in “The Black Cat”, Poe implements an abundant amount of violence, he- “..slowly slipped the noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree...”(Poe 2). The vicious imagination of the cat being hung directly affects the reader with a sinister feeling, contrary to the plot getting more and more vivid. In addition to that, in “The Devil and Tom Walker”, Irving displays violence throughout the story as Tom, “Found nothing …show more content…
This element was put into the story to depict the acts of violence and vivid images of the psychotic elements into the reader's head when reading the story. For an example , “The Black Cat”, Poe uses it to show how much the cat is ruining his life, “and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (Poe 2). While being drunk with a large ammount of alcoholism present, the cat is an unfriendly reminder of his evil deeds and psychotic actions. Why not stop the pain by deliberately hurting the cat- achieving revenge.In “Prey” a copious amount of grotesqueness was implemented in the story, for an example, she noticed a “..stabbing pain in her right calf… she felt warm blood running down her skin ” (Matheson 4). In addition to that , the Zuni doll became more in his actions to her. Therefore external conflict between her and the Zuni doll arrose. Lastly, in “The Devil and Tom Walker’, Irving utilizes grotesqueness to show evidence of body snatching - “..but the black man whisked him like a child into the saddle…” (Irving