Explore the ways in which Poe creates suspense in a selection of his short stories.

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Explore the ways in which Poe creates suspense in a selection of his short stories?

Edgar Allan Poe is an American 19th-century writer that uses the Gothic genre to entertain in his short stories. He uses a selection of techniques in your stories to inflict suspense, tension and even terror. One of these techniques were appearance versus reality, which was where the characters true intentions Were hidden to his victim. He also uses these settings, choice of language, addressing the reader, first person narration and fragmented sentences to create an air of suspense and mystery in his stories.

Firstly, Poe uses appearance versus reality to create suspense in his

short stories. This technique helps Poe create an air of mystery about what will happen next. In ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ the narrator says ‘my friend no; I will not impose upon your good nature’. This gives the assumption that the narrator is caring and a friend of Fortunato, however, we, the reader, know that the narrator is out for revenge from the sentence in the first paragraph: ‘But when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge’. This put together makes the reader feel concerned for Fortunato because they know that through the narrator’s revenge, something will happen to Fortunato. Furthermore, the choice of the world ‘revenge’ gives the assumption that the act will go over the top, be fatal even.

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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 ...

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