The Creative Destroyer: An analysis of Poe's The Oval Portrait.

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The Creative Destroyer: An analysis of Poe’s The Oval Portrait    

By Tolulope Gidado for Karin Littau

        The “Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allan Poe belies its short length by operating on so many different levels of meaning and understanding. It is a story that consciously seeks to ambush the reader’s expectations. The tale is narrated by a weary, injured man who arrives one night in a castle in the Apennines. He occupies his evening by poring over a catalogue describing the paintings in the room he is occupying. By adjusting his bedside candle, his attention is caught by a startlingly life-like portrait of a young lady that is hanging in the corner of the room. He enters into a slumber, awakes, and is intrigued to find out more about this portrait. He reads in the catalogue that the lady’s husband was the painter who was so obsessed with painting his wife that he failed to notice her increasingly poor condition. The story ends with the artist proclaiming that his masterpiece is ‘indeed life itself’ only to turn to his wife and realise that she is dead as a result of his neglect.

        One of the first noticeable things about “The Oval Portrait” is Poe’s writing style. He weaves his tale in a verbose, repetitive manner, which initially takes some getting used to. Once this hurdle has been overcome, one cannot help but be drawn by Poe’s compelling power of description. He manages to make every word of every sentence appear sinister and foreboding and this is crucial in building up the suspense in this story. It is this quality that lends “The Oval Portrait” a somewhat dark, melancholy undertone which is present from the offset. The writer’s description of events creates very vivid images in the mind’s eye. The opening part of the story is full of elements that suggest a connection with an emotive world. The surreal opening setting, which we are thrust into, is an example of this technique. There is a very close interaction between the words Poe uses and the powerful and vibrant images that they produce.

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        Given the dark setting and even shadier account of events, the reader could be forgiven for thinking that the tale has an eerie or even paranormal twist to it. The story however takes a different direction in the final paragraph by telling a separate story, a story within a story. At this point, the reader could legitimately question the relevance of this digression especially since the ‘new’ story appears to stop abruptly. A closer reading of the story offers evidence that the major story here is not really about the tired narrator at all, but about the girl in the ...

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