How Edgar Allen Poe Builds Tension in His Short Stories [Yr 9 Living Texts]

Edgar Allen-Poe (1809 – 1849) is widely acclaimed as one of the first and greatest gothic writers. His output mostly consisted of short stories and poems for various American magazines in the 1840s. Surprisingly, despite his fame and recognition within his own lifetime, he lived a life of squalor and poverty. Although best known for his gothic stories, he also wrote numerous detective and adventure stories. An alcoholic and an opium user, his stories often display a surreal, dark and dreamlike style. The world which Poe would have known was more superstitious and dangerous than today. For example, in the 19th century having a coma could be mistaken for death, as a result, it was not uncommon to be buried alive. Poe included live burial, grave-digging and murder in many of his works, which were the acute reflection of Victorian society’s foremost fears. One of the main assets of his work, however, was his ability to build intense suspense. By using a variety of techniques, Poe was able to create tension and mystery in his short stories. In this essay I will aim to describe his myriad methods. Poe employs excessively detailed descriptions and repetition to delay the reader’s arrival at the final climax; he did this because he wanted to give time for the suspense to develop before arrival at the inevitably blood-curdling climax. For example, In ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’,

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare the ways in which Poe creates suspense for the reader in The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado.

22/10/12 Justin Oh 9S Unit B931 Analysing Texts: Compare the ways in which Poe creates suspense for the reader in two or more stories you have read. Poe creates effective suspense in his stories, and two examples of which Poe creates suspense are “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado”. Poe creates suspense in his stories in various different ways, some are similar in each story, but some are different. Poe’s stories are filled with drama terror and fear, due to the suspense he creates. A lot of his stories are gothic and contain some sort of death or suffering. In the Tell-Tale Heart in the narrator persistently insists that he is not mad although throughout the story we learn more and more that he is in fact mad. He tries to prove his sanity by telling us how carefully he had planned the murder and all the precautions he had taken, but this just further proves his insanity. Also the narrator from the Tell-Tale Heart often talks the reader. Three examples of where the narrator directly speaks to the reader are, “but why will you say that I am mad?”, “You fancy me mad”, and, “if still you think me mad”. Another way that Poe creates suspense is by making the narrator obsessed with something, in the Tell-Tale Heart the narrator is obsessed with the old man’s eye, in the Cask of Amontillado the narrator is obsessed with revenge and in the

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Explore the ways in which Poe creates suspense in a selection of his short stories.

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

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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THE RAVEN by Edgar Allen Poe

THE RAVEN by Edgar Allen Poe The poem 'The Raven' can be described as a grotesque narrative poem or a darkly romantic classic. It has references to heaven, hell and the devil. The poem is divided into 18 stanzas with 6 lines in each stanza. It is about a man who is disturbed on one stormy night by a raven who comes to his room. The poem is written in the first person from the perspective of an unnamed man which could be referring to Edgar Allan Poe himself or a make believe character. The lonely man is mourning his dead lover, Lenore. Around the time the poem was written and published, Poe's own wife Virginia was dying of tuberculosis, so it is easy to believe that the man in the poem is Poe himself. Maybe Poe's purpose in writing this poem is to convey his own personal hell, a dark, imaginative story captured so well in the poem 'The Raven'. The tone and subject of the poem also includes sadness and beauty. Poe believed that the saddest and most beautiful event was the death of a beautiful woman. Everyone understands the passion of beauty. 'Beauty' excites the 'sensitive soul to tears' thus melancholy and beauty are close allies. Poe considered sadness to be the highest manifestation of beauty. The first and second verses set the theme and atmosphere of the poem- Once upon a midnight dreary.............. Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe The Raven, by E.A. Poe, is a poem about sadness and loss. The narrator attempts to escape from melancholy and human mortality, trying to slip away into a kind of forgetfulness. Three main supporting elements of this poem are the Romantic Characteristics taken from Romanticism (a movement in the arts that glorified nature, idealized the past, and celebrated human experiences). Symbolism (use in literature of objects or events to represent something other than themselves, frequently abstract ideas or concepts). Finally the mood/atmosphere (established though description of setting and the overall impression of the situation). Romantic Characteristics: The Raven consists of three Romantic Characteristics; imagination over reason, the accent of mystery and use of the supernatural. Poe uses imagination over reason to portray the raven as an evil being. It should be known that the raven is the Devil or one of the Devil's messengers sent to torture the man for the rest of his life by telling him that he will "nevermore" see his Lenore again. ("This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word 'Lenore!'--" ). It should also be recognized that the raven is made out as a type of prophet who knows all past and present of his life and that it can control his future in the after life. Use of the accent on mystery makes the Raven out as a

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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With reference to Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher and any other related source material, how successful is Oscar Wilde in creating a Gothic novel with The Picture of Dorian Gray?

With reference to Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher and any other related source material, how successful is Oscar Wilde in creating a Gothic novel with The Picture of Dorian Gray? By James Ravden The Gothic tradition has played a central role in creating architecture, poetry, literature, film and even art, such as Henry Fuselis' 1781 painting, "The Nightmare". Oscar Wilde borrowed heavily from the gothic tradition when creating his 1890s novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and in this essay I am going to be looking at certain gothic sections of Oscar Wildes' novel where he utilizes the fundamental aspects of the Gothic tradition. I will be looking into "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and how Wilde plays on the horror, the horrific, the suspense and the supernatural that all contribute to a Gothic mood. The term Gothic commands a vast semantic field of varied terrain; a range of meanings, definitions and associations. It is therefore very hard to define because it covers such a broad portfolio of different aspects. Historically the Goths were one of the several Germanic tribes who were one of the peoples who freed Europe from the clutches of the Roman Empire, culminating in its collapse in 476 AD. History itself has manipulated the term Gothic to be associated with the idea of freedom. One of the reasons the Gothic genre is so arduous to define is that it is

  • Word count: 2351
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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