How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Syntax

One of the most influential authors of all time, Edgar Allan Poe, uses dark imagery and complex syntax to make his short stories and poems harrowing and mysterious. Poe’s tragic backstory contributes to his writing style. Poe’s depressing life, such as the death of his mother, foster mother, and wife to tuberculosis caused him to write stories such as The Masque of the Red Death a story about a disease similar to tuberculosis called the Red Death spread across the country. Another theme throughout some of Poe’s stories is young women dying such as in Annabel Lee and The Fall of the House of Usher. A reason for this is because most every women he loved, his mom, foster mom, and wife, died young. Poe uses dark imagery and complex syntax to write gothic short stories and poems such as Annabel Lee and Fall of the House of Usher.

The imagery Poe crafts into the story sets a mysterious,and almost melancholy mood complemented by the tone. In The Fall of the House of Usher, the story is started by the quote “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens.” immediately creating a creepy, melancholy tone to make the reader get a feel of the solemn sadness of the story as soon as the story starts. Annabel Lee, a sad story where the narrator loses the love of his life, is turned creepy when the narrator sleeps with a dead Annabel Lee in her tomb. The quote “And so, all the night-tide, “I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,” makes the reader shift from feeling sad for a man that just lost his young wife, to creeped by a man who takes death cannot end our love