Theme Of Fear In Poe's Literature

“The Tell Tale Heart” is a story, on the most fundamental level, of conflict. There is a mental conflict inside the narrator himself (expecting the narrator is male). Through clear clues and explanations, Poe cautions the reader to the mental condition of the narrator, which is insanity. The insanity is portrayed as an obsession (with the old man 's eye), which thus leads to loss of control and in the long run outcomes in violence. At last, the narrator tells his story of killing his housemate.

Throughout the story, signs of death anxiety are present in everyone close to George and Catherine Stewart. Despite this, every character reacts to this fear in varying ways. It is ultimately how they choose to react to their circumstance which dictates their future. Although there is importance in preparing for the future, by clinging to thoughts of events that cannot be controlled, one may end up producing an even more undesirable outcome for themselves. Therefore, it is better to completely avoid stressing over events that are out of control, as it is how people choose to act given their circumstances which leads to their

The Past Dealt within the Future In Ray Bradbury’s “An Utterly Perfect Murder”, the author conveys that fear can cause an individual to let the past destroy their conscience and to seek revenge on those who have abused him. To begin, the main character Doug Spaulding expresses his fear that he developed due to the pain he experienced. For instance, Doug states, “we were fine friends needed each other. I to be hit. He to strike.

Elia Kazan’s award-winning film On the Waterfront and Arthur Miller’s tragic play The Crucible both explore the impact of fear on both individuals and communities and the consequences that may arise due to the chaos caused by fear. Both texts contain centres of power which instil fear in the community and ultimately result in the untimely demise of numerous characters. Additionally, both texts depict the different acts of self-preservation an individual may exhibit when confronted by fear-induced hardships. Furthermore, despite main characters from both texts – John Proctor and Terry Malloy- illustrating acts of heroism in their final scenes, only Malloy’s attempt for redemption is seen to result in a resolution to the corruption caused by

As we can see Prospero was powerful and important, he secluded himself in a big castellated abbey with lots of provisions, but as death comes to everyone, he died too. That’s what Poe wants to show us. He makes a personification of death to create the allegory and give us this message, which is really horrible and creepy. It’s a message that haunts us after reading the story. It produces a lasting effect on us, different from all the other elements in the story, which produced an instant effect on us, as the language for example.

In the novel “The Asylum” by John Harwood, the author captures the fear and trauma of his characters by evoking the sublime and creating a sense of terror for the reader. To begin, the author uses terror to evoke the sublime by foreshadowing the coming of danger in the reader. First of all, the actions of a seemingly innocent person foreshadows

throughout the poem which is an example of Repetition. This repetition is used in the beginning and the end to confirm the distress that Whitman is experiencing. Moreover, fear is a large component in someone finding their life purpose. People tend to look at everything that can go wrong. They always look at the downsides.

This is evident in the Seneca’s Oedipus as Oedipus does not realise he is the perpetrator of the crime. We get a sense of irony as Oedipus is able to solve the sphinx but not understand who he is. Furthermore, he wants to solve the case of who murdered King Liaus so that the plague of Thebes can end. However, because of Oedipus’ unawareness, we sympathise with the king as he shows true signs of guilt and remorse for his actions. In relation to Shakespeare’s Richard III, it is clear that Richard is the anti hero.

This parallels the idea of fear being incorporated within a myth by Armstrong. Armstrong suggests that a myth should either depict or show the overcoming of fears commonly held by its intended audience. She specifically mentions the most principle fear held by almost all humans as well as alluding to a wider range of fears by saying, “Mythology was therefore designed to help us to cope with the problematic human predicament” (Armstrong 6). In this quote, Armstrong highlights the need of a myth to help those who know of it cope with the “human predicament”. In this case Armstrong is speaking of death, however, this idea can be applied to any fear held in the hearts of those reading or creating a myth.

Edgar Allan Poe’s use of literary devices to show the how fear of the characters in his stories are both helpful and harmful to them. Poe shows how the fears and obsessions of the narrators in his tales either lead to their inevitable death, or their miraculous survival. Edgar Allan Poe uses many literary devices in his texts, such as symbols, ironies, and figurative language, to show the strange and distorted ways of the characters, and the repercussion of their fears and obsessions. In Poe’s stories, a literary device he uses frequently throughout his stories, are symbols. For example, in the text “The The-Tale Heart”, Poe’s use of the old man’s eye symbolized the obsessions and fears of the narrator like, “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood