3.05 Poe Describes The Sensations Of Being Buried Alive Essay

Of all gothic writers, Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most groundbreaking of them all. From The Cask of Amontillado, a story with integrated historical references of the time, to The Fall of the House of Usher, a deep and morbid story full of imagery. Anywhere from The Tell-Tale Heart, truly a story of both unique syntax and perspective, to The Raven, a poem full of symbols and eerie repetition. Through these and many more, Poe has been using his writing style to immerse people into his stories and poems alike since 1839. However, Poe is only able to accomplish this through his unique writer’s style, particularly his forceful imagery and meaningful syntax.

Edgar Allen Poe creates an atmosphere of suspense in “The Raven” and in “The Pit and Pendulum “making the reader wonder what is going to happen next by creating confusion. The typical gothic style of Poe’s writings is very dark and cold, affecting the narrator both mentally and physically. In both “The Pit and The Pendulum” and “The Raven”, both of the narrators are being tortured. In “The Raven” the narrator is being tortured mentally while in “The Pit and The Pendulum” the narrator is being tortured physically. Poe uses many gothic elements such as setting and supernatural elements making fear one of the most important unifying effects in the narratives.

The following night after the narrator kills the cat, the house catches on fire and the next day the narrator comes back to the house to see the ruins and came to see a group of people around a strange bas relief on the wall. The narrator was terrified when he saw what the bas relief was and the narrator writes, “There had been a rope about the animal’s neck” (Poe 3).

Have you ever been reading a book and start to wonder “what happens next?” This is called suspense, a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. These stories use suspense to help develop the overall tone of the two stories. “The Tell-Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allan Poe, and “The Monkey’s Paw, by W.W Jacobs, created a feeling of suspense by using cause-and-effect relationships by showing the characters’ feeling of something frightening might happen. First off, “The Monkey’s Paw” uses cause-and-effect relationships to cause tension or suspense.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writer of all time, as he was one of the first writers to explore darker themes through literature such as death and revenge. He has revolutionized the gothic genre for years to come. Throughout the many gothic works of Edgar Allan Poe including, The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, and many more; Poe gives a unsettling tone which defines most of his writing. Poe tries to do this through incorporating specific literary techniques like erie imagery and cryptic diction.

The story that had the most suspense was “The Sniper” because the author used short, choppy sentences, left cliffhangers at the end of paragraphs, and had a plot twist at the end of the story. Liam O’Flaherty’s use of short, choppy sentences makes it suspenseful because they don’t give you a lot of information. The lack of information leads you to keep reading so you can find out what happens next. If the sentences are drawn out, you don’t get a suspenseful feeling since everything is there in one sentence.

Whether it’s guilt overriding their senses, killing someone because of a fear, the fear of being buried alive, the fear of disease, fear of the dead, fear of dying. In “Cask of Amontillado” (1846), Poe plays on the fear of being entombed. He projects these fears onto the reader. He uses dark language to project a horrific setting, such as putting an emphasis on the catacomb—how dark and decrepit it is: “We descended, passed on, and descending again, arrive in the deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame” (21). The walls “had been lined with human remains” just like the Catacombs in Paris.

The death of Edgar Allen Poe has been a mystery quite sometime as the details surrounding it are very few and the few we do have are quite vague. Through all of the unclear details two theories have arisen. The first theory of Poe’s death was alcohol poisoning. Poe was found outside of a tavern in a disoriented state of mind and for an unknown reason was wearing someone else’s clothes. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was put into a room where he could recover from his apparent drunken state. The next morning when the doctor check on him they realized something was quite wrong as his condition had gotten worse. He had also now become delirious and had tremors throughout his limbs, not violent but very shaky and , was constantly going

Suspense is used in literature to give off a feeling of uncertainty. In W.F. Harvey’s story “August Heat”, he writes about our protagonist James and how he meets a bizarre character named Mr.Atkinson who he feels is an unnatural person and feels uneasy with him. Later when he is invited to stay the night, Harvey finished the story off with James saying he will “be gone in less than an

The Style of Poe Analysis In “The Tell-tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, the demented, arrogant and dark tones reflect the man’s guilt and insanity that eventually leds him to admit to the crime he committed. Poe’s diction heightens the arrogant tones which is seen as the man plans the murder and carries it out in a careful, organized way. He goes “boldly” into the chamber, “cunningly” sticks his head in the doorway and feels “the extent of his own power”. Poe’s use of diction shows how cocky the man actually is.

Though Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories like, The Cask of Amontillado, to his poems like, The Raven, Poe’s shows his writing style to use physical imagery and connotative syntax to show ,imagery in his writing. Throughout his life, Poe had always lived through the most chaotic and evil of time. His parents died while he was 3 years old. After his parents died, he lived with another family member who never accepted him as their own son. Later on in life, Poe had served in the military and at that point he started writing poems. After Poe was honorably discharged from the military, he married his 12 year old cousin who died shortly of tuberculosis. These events heavily contributed to his writing style by giving events to base stories as well as a viewpoint on the world. Overall, Edgar Allan Poe’s twisted and ominous writing style focuses on using physical imagery and connotative syntax to show imagery.

Poe’s focus on the thoughts and emotions surrounding the protagonist, while providing few physical details of the events, gives the reader a psychological thrill as they are drawn into the mind of a

This type of suspense also causes the reader to “have to” keep reading. A few pages later, the author creates suspense again when Sorrento says “sit down Wade.” Even though they have his home wired with explosives, he still logs out. The author again drops off and waits at least half a page until he makes the bomb go off. Once again, the reader has to think “was he bluffing or not” and makes the reader continue to read when suddenly, bang, there 's your

Suspense about the characters, suspense about the plot; everything was a mystery. The narrator’s every step brought suspense, especially when he got involved with the beating of the heart. Towards the end of the story, the author leaves readers constantly wondering as the suspense is increasing - What will happen to the characters, or how will they end up? These are questions that readers often find themselves asking, although the most common question is simply what will happen

Again, the old man emerged from the darkness.” The suspense that is being built here is shown throughout this passage the passage before and as well the passage after. I chose this particular passage because the reader can actually feel the suspense as she talks about the “dark, dusty, and mysterious bookshop.” The suspense shown in the passage before is if Sarah is willing to trade money for the pencil box.