Next, Poe creates suspense in his choice of setting. He always sets his
short stories at dusk/night and the evil deeds are done at midnight. For example, in ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ he says he does his deed, ‘Every night, about midnight’. This is saying that his evil deed is done at midnight, the witching hour in some sense. This makes the story scary and makes the reader feel uneasy. Furthermore, in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ the setting is used to provoke fear into the reader. For example it was set at ‘dusk, one evening’. The phrase ‘one evening’ makes it sound mysterious. Then, Poe uses the cold to make the reader feel unease by saying ‘ but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre’. The use of severe cold tells you that it would be very cold in the vaults and cold can be thought of as an evil, so the vaults can come across as a very evil place. After all of this, Poe uses powerful description of his setting to make suspense. He says that he was in a place that was ‘lines with human remains’. This would make you feel that tis place is a place of death, this would make the reader very wary about what will happen next and it fills the reader with anxiety about what might happen to Fortunato. Then he says the words ‘circumscribing wall of granite’. This makes you feel as if the place was like a prison/tomb from the word ‘circumscribing’.
Another technique Poe uses is to address the reader in his stories. The
main reasoning of this is to make the reader feel involved in the story. For example, in ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ the narrator says ‘but why will you say that I am mad?’. This use of asking a question to the reader makes the reader feel involved in the story and part of the crime about to take place. Then, in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ the narrator says ‘you who so well know the nature of my soul’. This implies that the reader know the narrator and knows what he is capable of, in some sense it make the reader feel helpless about the situation, as if the reader could have stopped the impending crime.
Poe uses first person narrative in his stories to create suspense. An
example of this from ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ is saying ‘THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could’. This shows that the narrator could be unreliable and biased because of the hyperbolic phrase at the start ‘THE thousand injuries’. This hyperbole is showing that the narrator is exaggerating. Then, through the first person, you don’t get any of Fortunato’s views and feelings. All you know is what the narrator tells you, so you wouldn’t know if it were true or not. This can be proven when the narrator says ‘When he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge’. You don’t know what Fortunato did or if the narrator’s actions are proportionate to what of Fortunato’s. All in all the reader would feel anxious and tense because he/she wouldn’t be getting all the views and wouldn’t know for sure what would happen next leaving an air of mystery.
Another way Poe creates suspense was to fragment his sentences. This
technique makes the narrator sound crazy or anxious, for example, in ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ the narrator uses sentences such as ‘They heard! - They suspected! – They knew!’. The use of the exclamation marks brought upon, in this instance, a sense of insanity and it would make the reader feel tense and uneasy. On the other hand, in the same story ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ the narrator uses fragmented sentences in a different way, he says ‘I proceeded - with what caution – with what foresight – with what dissimulation’. This use of fragmented sentence shows hoe the narrator wanted to emphasize his actions, it shows how determined the narrator is. It implies that the narrator will go through with his plan and something bad will happen. This will make the reader apprehensive.
Finally, Poe uses gothic language to inflict suspense, tension and terror
in his stories. In ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ the narrator uses words and phrases such as ‘haunted’, ‘mad’, ‘blood ran cold’, ‘Evil’, and in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ he used ‘immolation’ and ‘supreme madness’. These words were used to make the reader feel uneasy. For example the world ‘immolation’ means death by sacrifice. This will make the reader feel terror and it will make the reader feel very concerned for Fortunato. Then, the words ‘mad’ and ‘madness’ come up a lot in Poe’s stories. He uses them because it helps hint that the narrator is mad himself and the amount it is said in his stories makes the reader feel tense.
Poe uses all these techniques in his short stories to infuse suspense,
tension and fear. He made his stories using appearance versus reality, his choice of setting, how he addresses the reader, his first person narrative, how he fragments his sentences and the language he uses. These method, together, create the perfect gothic stories.