How Does Edgar Allan Poe Create Suspense

Imagery

The way the scenes are described in Poe’s short story creates a suspenseful Scenario in the reader's head and it can show how unstable the narrators can be. For example in the Cask of Amontillado, The narrator perceives piles of bones as if it was normal which could lead the reader to believe that the narrator could be a psycho or just insane ”we had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs (The cask of amontillado Paragraph 20). When you read this you get a sense of shock but you can see the narrator is not affected by this. Also in Tell-Tale Heart Poe describes the eyes of the old man as it was disgusting or just simply bad. He does this because of

In the raven Poe uses imagery to show how the narrator does not care about his life anymore by the way he describes what is happening for example ”And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; (The raven Paragraph 2)” in this quote from the raven you can see that the narrator is not that scared of the sudden sounds and just surprised by the way he describes the

Poe always keeps the emotions the character has and in some stories, he changes the tone of the story when something happens to the narrators that make them change. For example, in the raven, the narrator is still grieving the death of his lover Lenore but at the end of the story he fully accepts that Lenore is not going to come back. “And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!” (The raven paragraph 18). And also “Leave my loneliness unbroken” (The raven paragraph 17). These two paragraphs are showing the tone of the story at its core, the story just being about our narrator mourning the death of Lenore for the rest of his life even after meeting something magical he couldn’t get the answers to his questions leaving him in eternal sorrow. In Tell Tale heart the narrator goes from being determined to kill to feel extremely guilty about what he has done, making him reveal the body of the old man. “TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” (Tell-Tale Heart Paragraph 1) and “Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! here, here!—It is the beating of his hideous heart!” Tell-Tale Heart paragraph 10.) In these two quotes, we can see the change in the