Edgar Allan Poe 'Tell Tale Heart' and 'the fall of the house of Usher

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Show how Poe uses language to create atmosphere and describe the state of mind of the murderer and Roderick Usher. Consider how the modern reader might respond to these stories.

Daniel Tiernan 4U

               

        Edgar Allen Poe was an American short story writer, editor for magazines and poet during the early to mid 19th century. Two of his short stories, ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ were both written during the Victorian times when Gothic literature was at it’s height in popularity. The main thesis and features of Gothic literature are mystery, terror, supernatural, big decaying houses or castles and the dead. The Victorian readers were fascinated by the supernatural especially, with many still believing in witches and black magic. Ideas like these are still found in horror stories today and also in films, however the main attraction for horror movies has changed from supernatural, to audiences wanting to be frightened. Poe was a prolific idea of Gothic literature, and his main base for writing was madness, which features in both stories that we have studied. His writing does not just include madness, but also its implications and what it can result to if left untreated.

              In the opening sentences Poe captures the reader’s attention with Capitalisation, the use of exclamation mark, repetition and a rhetorical question. ‘True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?’ The narrator is communicating with us from the outset and the capitalisation of the word True, which is not normally used to open a sentence. He also uses an exclamation mark on the opening word True which makes the reader feel as though he has shouted the word out, which is quite bizarre. The repetition and staccato likeness of the opening words sets a fast tempo to the story, which ignites the reader’s attention and, lends to the reader’s opening theory that the narrator does not have a level headed mind. The rhetorical question that Poe uses, ‘why will you say that I am mad?’ is a good literary device as it involves the reader and builds a relationship through the dialogue between the narrator and the reader, engaging the audience and makes the reader believe that maybe the narrator doubts the stability of his own mind. All these factors show the reader the narrator has an agitated mind and strongly suggest the narrator’s insanity.

          Poe develops an image of a disturbed person in the first paragraph, who hears voices in his head. ‘I heard all things in heaven and in Earth. I heard many things in hell,’ This makes the reader suspect that the narrator is unstable and his actions are the commands of the voices in his head, when referring to hell we suspect that some of these voices are evil and dark in their nature. A foreboding atmosphere is thus produced and it makes the reader to read on with excitement mixed with also a little nervous anticipation.

           Poe builds up suspense extremely well by using imagery and he also slows the tempo down to describe how slowly he was moving his own hand, comparing its speed to that of the minute hand of a clock. ‘A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine’. This description of how slow he moved his hands makes the reader wonder about his mental health and lends to the theory that he is maybe a schizophrenic with much paranoia and an extremely strong desire to kill. The modern reader would like this because in today’s stories and films it is often that there is a madman with a mental condition who is the villain and/or murderer.  

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      Midnight was a time when many Victorians believed that supernatural forces were at work. Poe uses this myth to create a dark foreboding atmosphere. The narrator tells the reader that he entered the old mans room every night ‘about midnight’ and reinforces the atmosphere by the use of repetition of the idea of the witching hour. ‘Every night just at midnight’ and ‘Just at twelve’. The narrator is building up suspense for the reader by placing his evil deed during what the Victorians called the witching hour. For a Victorian reader they would know the mythological idea that ...

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