How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Of Power

Power Over Poe
Some of the earliest examples found of short stories are presumed to be written between 1790 and 1810, since then millions have been written. One author most people know most famously is Edgar Allan Poe. His short stories are powerful. They have intense and truthful moments that are widely considered to be enchanting to readers. Some examples in “The Masque of Red Death”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, and “The Tell-Tale Heart” demonstrate how creatively Poe engages the audiences in multiple manners. The content of the stories is disturbing, and seemingly impossible, even with immense depth. As a writer, through Poe’s use of Gothic elements reinforced in the setting, the characters, and the plot in his stories, he develops the power

To demonstrate, Poe expresses, “Few Italians have the virtuoso spirit” (Cask 1). When this story was written, the English generally found Italy and Spain as mysterious and creepy countries. As a consequence of their negligence towards these countries, many Gothic writers used this preexisting fear in their stories to their advantage. However, because of how they are portrayed in writing, the location in the stories remains spine-chilling even if the prejudice of the countries no longer exists. Moreover, in “The Masque of Red Death” Poe chooses in multiple instances to incorporate small miscellaneous elements into the setting that highlights how the reader is intended to view the situation. To illustrate, in the corridors, there are tripods outside of the rooms that emanate very little light of the fire upon them. In addition, in Gothic literature, shadows and candle lights as the only source of lighting in a scene creates a frightening ambiance, or rather the suggestion of something alarming. The way Poe incorporates the setting in small sections is tremendously strategic, but in the end, it makes the readers associate, in a hidden way, those elements with, as one would put it, “bad stuff”. All that he is doing is implicitly forcing subconscious links in his readers'

These instances in his stories create an element of the supernatural and the impossible. Referring to “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe states: “... the eye of a vulture -- a pale blue eye” (1). This character’s element is strange since the man of the eye is asleep, therefore the man is sleeping with one eye open, or the other character is seeing things that are not truly there. This ties into the impossible since a vulture eye can not be in a human eye socket, never mind a blue one. On the other hand, there are also times when the characters are entirely a part of the supernatural experience. As discussed in “The Masque of the Red Death” the character of the red death, in the end, is revealed to have no tangible form (6). As a matter of fact, not only is the figure not truly there, but he killed Prince Prospero not even minutes before this was revealed. It is respectable to believe “Perhaps it was a ghost?”, but ghosts are not real, and they too can not physically kill a human. However, ghosts are a major part of the supernatural, so it is clear that this is too. Poe’s characters are developed slowly throughout his stories, but it renders them intense and