Literary Elements In Edgar Allan Poe

In many stories and poems; such as the Tell Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven, Annabel Lee, The House of Usher, and so many more timeless works, Edgar Allan Poe has been captivating his audiences with spine tingling thrillers through the words and style of his own twisted ways. The only way to describe where Poe’s writing belongs in history, would be classified as gothic genre. From the start of the 1800’s to present day and the future of literature, through irony, repetition, imagery, and symbolism Poe has been bewitching readers with his gore and insane writings.
Poe’s life inspired so many of his poems, from focusing on taboo topics, such as death, revenge, love and loss. Poe’s life was painful and heartbreaking that it’s

Poe is able to describe how anger feels, describe how it feels to love someone than lose them in a matter of seconds, describe how it feels to hate and despise someone with a burning passion, until the reader feels as though they will crack under pressure. Poe’s fantastic grasp on diction and the creation of images in the reader’s mind, can be seen in the The Fall of the House of Usher, when the narrator says “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens…” (paragraph 1) . Poe was able to show how the sky looked even though the reader wasn’t able to see it through their own eyes. His words has a certain way to them, to make the reader believe they are standing right next to him as he is writing the story. The imagery in the piece can also materialize the thoughts of the reader to see how the characters are beginning down a slippery-slope toward nothingness. In the short story, The Tell Tale Heart, Poe was able to describe the insanity of the narrator about the single eye. The

Irony can be seen throughout the story in the words and phrases of the character. The irony can create a disturbing, yet slightly humorous scene with the audience not knowing what’s coming for the characters. In the short story, The Cask Of Amontillado, irony can be seen through the conversations of the two characters, Montresor and Fortunato. Although, Montresor is the character with most literary devices. Verbal irony can be seen in the story when Montresor told the “attendees” to stay in the house while he was gone. Montresor knew the “attendees” would leave because he figured “These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance…” (paragraph 24). Poe uses this device to convey the cleverness of Montresor. Montresor is a clever man, who knows his attendees will not listen to him. Although Poe does use irony, it is not the only literary device he uses. Poe utilizes the technique of repetition. Poe uses the repetition of the thoughts and feelings of the characters to show how truly and utterly insane they are. In the poem, The Raven, Poe repeats the word “Nevermore” (stanza 8) to reveal how the character is going crazy from the death of a loved one. In an additional story, The Tell Tale Heart, Poe uses this repetition to manifest the displeasure and lunacy of the character, who is obsessed with watching