Edgar Allan Poe Essay -- English Literature

Edgar Allan Poe EssayHow does E.A. Poe explore the themes of horror and obsession in hisshort stories?In Edgar Allan Poes short stories the black cat and The Tell TaleHeart, twain terrify the reader by making them believe they be theperson going through these terrifying tales, as they believe they canhear the m totally pound under the floor boards as in The Tell Tale Heart.Or they feel very cocky as showing the police plump the basement 2 3times until it all goes wrong, they feel it was them who committedthese awful crimes. In the Black cat short story, it is the madness ofthe characters that creates the perfect alarming story, the man trying tokill the cat and eventually killing his wife.Poe creates an atmosphere of horror by making the reader feel they arethe main character, that they use up just driven an axe in to therewives head. He wants the reader to feel panic attackd and unsure, to bescared next time they hear a soft beating sound that is unexplainable,to remember th e story and haunt you for as long as you live. Thetechniques he uses to do this are simple, but very, very affective, herepeats words and describes the most minute thing, for example, Itwas open wide, wide open and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. Isaw it with perfect distinctness all a dull blue, with a hideousveil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones for I haddirected the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.That shows how he describes almost everything giving you a great ideaof what was happening and how he repeated words to give a undreamtsense of fear.Another method used by Edgar Allan Poe to illustrate the obsessions ofhis characters is that they all were slightly ... ...es the perfect horror story of his time. As thewhen the storys are read in the present they do not scare us as wehave seen horror films with people having objects rammed through thereheads and horrible things that would scare the hair of a littlechilds back. But even how des criptive the story is it wouldnt scareyou because of our modern day society. The techniques used by EdgarAllan Poe created tension and fear, wanting to know what happenednext. And that is what happened. Edgar Allan Poe is successful throughbeing able to reflect his life into his work, create new techniquesfor generations onwards to use, he gave some of the better examples ofnarrative stories and created some of the most describing pieces ofwork ever. In most peoples eyes he succeeded in being one of the tophorror writers of all time, if not the most remembered and the best.