‘The Black Cat’ and ‘The Squaw’ are both short stories from the sub-genre of horror fiction. How are evil and the supernatural presented in each of the stories? Compare and contrast the two stories.

English Literature Coursework - Response to Pre-1900 Prose texts 'The Black Cat' and 'The Squaw' are both short stories from the sub-genre of horror fiction. How are evil and the supernatural presented in each of the stories? Compare and contrast the two stories. Horror stories have common ingredients, including, a ruined gothic castle with monsters such as vampires and werewolves. Horror stories generally play on fear of the unknown. They cause the reader to be afraid of what they are going to see that they don't expect. When horror stories are also short stories, they benefit from this. A larger amount of dramatic events can take place in a short space of time. If the main character of a horror story that wasn't a short story died very near the end, the whole story would be ruined. This means that readers of short horror stories are shocked much more. In the two stories, evil and the supernatural are not presented in the way that they are normally in short stories. They are presented in a way to make the reader think about them, and how they can arise. This is unlike most horror stories, in which the aim of the story is just to shock and scare the reader. The two stories are entitled 'The Black Cat' and 'The Squaw'. The tiles of stories can tell the reader about them. The Black Cat is a short story about a man who is driven to murder by his cat. The Squaw is also a short

  • Word count: 3014
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Explore the ways E.A. Poe uses his narrators to create a sense of terror and suspense

Explore the ways E.A. Poe uses his narrators to create a sense of terror and suspense Throughout all the stories I have read during the course of studying Edgar Allen Poe, the narrating has been fairly similar and a great sense of tension, fear and believability have been created inn all of them. The stories are all written in the first person, so it is more like a story is being told to you by some one, which makes them all more believable. In 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell Tale Heart', it is something that drives the narrator mad that forces him to commit the murders, and in 'The Premature Burial' his fear, being buried alive, is driving him mad. In fact he is being driven over the edge of insanity in all the stories we have studied except two - 'The Fall of the house of Usher' and 'The Pit and the Pendulum', both in which he is nearly killed. In all of them we learn a lot about the narrator, for example, in 'The Premature Burial', we learn about his background, and a lot about catalepsy and his fear of being buried alive. The narrators are very descriptive of the other characters in the stories and this really adds atmosphere, and makes the reader feel as if they are part of the tale. For example, in 'The Tell Tale Heart', Poe describes the old man- "One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture- a pale blue eye, with a film over it." He often uses similes and metaphors,

  • Word count: 982
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe - "The Raven".

Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe-"The Raven" A lonely man tries to ease his "sorrow for the lost Lenore" by distracting his mind with old books of "forgotten Lore," however he is interrupted while he is "nearly napping" by "tapping on the chamber door" while a raven slowly drives him mad by repeating the same word: nevermore. Poe builds the tension in the poem when he says that "each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor," he creates a dark, mysterious mood that prepares the reader for the rest of the poem, as it has gothic characteristics and uses words like "bleak." Later on as the raven lets the narrator know that there is no meaning in searching for a moral in the raven's "nevermore," he says: "And my soul from out that shadow, that lies floating on the floor, shall be lifted - nevermore." The man imagines that the raven has come to retrieve him of his anguish and imagines like all other blessings of his life, the bird will leave. The Climax of the poem is when the narrator faces his confused and disordered world and in his madness he cries out, "Get three back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!" Poe has an extensive use of vocabulary and there is a use of ancient and poetic language, which seems appropriate, since the poem is about a man spending most of his time with the books of the "forgotten Lore". The tone in Edgar Allan Poe's "The

  • Word count: 801
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Comparison of The Raven and The Erlking

Compare and contrast Goethe's 'The Erlking' with Poe's 'The Raven'. In particular, describe and discuss how the poets create tension and suspense In this essay, I am going to compare and contrast the two famous poems, 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe and 'The Erlking' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Raven is a one hundred and eight line poem about a lonely man who is unstable after losing his wife and comes across a raven who only speaks the word, "nevermore". The Erlking is a poem about a man in a small girl's nightmare as he torments her but nobody else can see him. There are many similarities and differences between the two poems. Both poems have a gothic atmosphere and can be compared strongly in this way. However, both are of different lengths and differ fro9m each other. In this essay, I am going to discuss how the two poets create tension and suspense and make a conclusion after studying these poems. The first element I am going to compare and contrast is the storyline of the poem and the impression it is meant to have on its reader. I am going to start by analysing each poem individually and then make a small conclusion when I will see how they are similar and how they differ. I will be using this structure for each point I will discuss. I will start by analysing 'The Raven'. The main principle of Edgar Allen Poe's poem was to have a lasting effect on its

  • Word count: 1460
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Discussing 'The Tell Tale Heart', 'The Black Cat' and 'The Oval Portrait'.

'The Tell Tale Heart' is about the death of an old man who was murdered by his man servant, who had become increasingly agitated over his master's 'evil eye'. 'The Oval Portrait is the story of a painter's infatuation with his young wife, who gradually dies due to the supernaturalism of his painting. 'The Black Cat' is about a mans perverse and sadistic killing of his pet and his wife. These tales all conform to the horror genre because they inflict physical and psychological fear upon the reader. The three stories I have analysed all convey frightening and shocking horror, inducing a feeling of repulsion or loathing. 'I cut off the head and the arms and the legs' is a quote taken from 'The Tell Tale Heart'. It refers to the brutal murder of an old man and how his killer has dismembered his corpse, so that he can hide it. 'She was dead!' is a quote taken from 'The Oval Portrait'. It refers to the shocking death of a painter's young wife, who is nothing more than his muse for his treasured art work. 'I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain' is a quote taken from 'The Black Cat'. It has reference to the murder of a housewife, killed by her own husband, and then attempts to conceal the corpse in the basement. Although these short stories all contain shocking and frightening scenes of horror, 'The Oval Portrait' is very much more withdrawn horror and

  • Word count: 2361
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Show how Edgar Allan Poe uses language to create atmosphere and describe the state of mind of the murderer

Show how Edgar Allan Poe uses language to create atmosphere and describe the state of mind of the murderer Consider how the modern reader might respond to this story. In this essay i will discuss the which language techniques Poe uses to create atmosphere and suspence. I will also show how he allows us to get into the mind of the murder and how he conveys his state of mind. The tell-tale heart is the story of a man who decides to murder the old man he is living with. There is no apparent reason for this other than the old man's eye which 'resembled that of a vulture'. In the end he is driven mad by guilt and confesses to the murder. The story starts with a very abrupt attention gtabbing opening. The word 'TRUE' not only starts the story with a burst of tension, it also makes the reader want to read on further to try and find out what is true. Poe also uses short, intense sentences to increase suspence and atmosphere. He uses this technique throughout the story whenever he needs to renew the tension.Straight away the murderer begins to argue his sanity. This suggests to the reader that he may have done something for others to think him mad, this again makes the reader want to read on to find out what he has done. Poe tells the story in the first person, in my mind this is exactly the right choice as it allows us into the head of the murderer. It also increases tension as

  • Word count: 449
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

With which of the two murderers do you feel sympathy for in the short stories, "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe and "Confessions found In a Prison" by Charles Dickens?

With which of the two murderers do you feel sympathy for in the short stories, "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe and "Confessions found In a Prison" by Charles Dickens? My essay will consist of the themes of the two short stories and background information on the authors who were living at the Victorian time, now seen as classical writers. Edgar Allen Poe was born January 19th 1809 in Boston. He was an American short story writer, poet, critic, and editor. He is famous in all of these traits for his cultivation of mystery and macabre writing. The atmosphere is his tales of horror is unrivalled in American fiction. After his mother died in Richmond, in 1811, he was taken into the home of John Allan, a Richmond merchant (presumably his godfather), and his childless wife. He was later taken to Scotland and England (1815-20), where he was given a classical education that was continued in Richmond. His gambling losses at the university incensed his guardian that he refused to let him continue, and Poe returned to Richmond to find his sweetheart, (Sarah) Elmira Royster, engaged. Poe made a name as a critical reviewer and married his young cousin Virginia Clemm, who was only 13. Poe seems to have been an affectionate husband and son-in-law. Poe was dismissed from his job in Richmond, apparently for drinking, and went to New York City. Drinking was in fact to be the bane of

  • Word count: 2790
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

How does poe create tension in BBC and TTH

Compare the two nineteenth century horror stories 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-tale heart' by Edgar Allan Poe, showing how Poe uses a range of techniques to make his stories dramatic and effective. Edgar Allan Poe was an American author who wrote 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-tale Heart'. 'The Black Cat' written in 1845 depicts a supposedly animal loving man who becomes addicted to alcohol which eventually gets out of control and he ends up killing his cat and wife. 'The Tell-tale Heart' was written in 1950 after Poe's wife's death in 1847, portrays a madman who becomes paranoid about an old mans vulture like eye and similarly to 'The Black Cat' he kills the old man. In both stories Poe uses a variety of techniques to convey his dramatic version of the gothic horror genre. He uses repetition through the rule of three, punctuation and simple sentences, settings and pathetic fallacy, the main homodiegetic narrator and innocent side characters as well as some significant supernatural events. These all help achieve the effective, dramatic gothic horror story. Another technique used by Poe is repetition including the use of the rule of 3. In 'the tell tale heart' the pace of the story quickens when Poe used the repetition in the rule of three. 'Louder! Louder! Louder!' this is said repeatedly at the end to insinuate the narrators panic and quickening velocity. This technique

  • Word count: 663
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Choose two of the pre-20th century short stories that you have studied. Compare and contrast the ways in which they make use of character, plot and language to create tension.

Pre-20th Century Prose : Short Stories Choose two of the pre-20th century short stories that you have studied. Compare and contrast the ways in which they make use of character, plot and language to create tension. The two chosen short stories to be compared and contrasted in such a way as to examine the tension created are "Hop-Frog" -otherwise known as "The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs"- and "The Tell-Tale Heart", both written by the same author: Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was considered as the best known American writer of the nineteenth century, mostly writing stories that could be found under headings such as 'Horror' or 'Supernatural'. Taking a look at his background, one can note that his childhood was a very troubled one, and the tension in all his stories is possibly due to this significant fact. Young Edgar Poe's unsettled childhood initiated with the death of his mother when he was only 2 years old, and not long after he was taken in by another family, the 'Allan' family, hence his two surnames. His teenage years were no better, for after enrolling at the University of Virginia, he was quickly expelled for drunkenness and debt. He soon joined the Army, taking a teaching post at the West Point military academy, only to have it taken away from him again after being court martialled in 1832 for gambling and, again, drunkenness. This scandal pursued him during the rest of

  • Word count: 2412
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

A Comparison between Two Pre-Twentieth Century Stories : "Tell Tale" and "The Black Cat"

A Comparison between Two Pre-Twentieth Century Stories I am comparing two short and gothic stories written by the same author called Edgar Allen Poe. This author writes many stories that are based on a gothic theme, he writes stories that are both short and long. The two that I am comparing are two of his short gothic stories, they are called 'The Tell Tale Heart', which I will refer to as 'Tell Tale' and 'The Black Cat'. I found both of these short stories on the rather graphic note, and they could be made very scary if a few more things were added. They both had the gothic feel; I had also experienced this in other short stories called 'Napoleon and the Spectre' and 'The Signalman'. They both had an eerie feel about them, but they used a ghost like character to predict things that are to happen in the future. That idea is not present in the 'Tell Tale', but it is in 'The Black Cat'. This is because the second black cat has the white mark on its stomach in the shape of gallows, so it is in a way predicting the protagonist's death. The beginning of both stories ('Tell Tale' and 'The Black Cat') I thought were similar because the protagonist starts by reflecting on the events that he is about to tell you about. Also the rest of both stories are written in first person. There is no evidence of the 'Tell Tale' being written in a certain place, but 'The Black Cat' was

  • Word count: 1073
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay