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Similarities Between The Raven And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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Edgar Allan Poe, a unique individual with questionable stories, creates many outstanding works. Using the Gothic element of mystery and suspense abundantly, Poe also uses multiple other elements of horror in these texts to portray the stories. The Gothic elements contribute to emphasizing the story and feelings of the characters in their wild lives. In “The Black Cat,” The Raven, and “The Fall Of The House Of Usher,” these components reveal the insanity of Poe during his time. Poe uses metonymy of gloom and horror and the devil to portray the atmosphere of mystery and suspense in The Raven and in “The Fall Of The House Of Usher”;however, “The Black Cat” differs because the doppelgänger increases the mystery and suspense in the text. Throughout the three works, the metonymy of gloom and horror conveys the atmosphere of mystery and suspense. “The Black Cat” uses horror by showing the narrators “wonder and [his] terror [was] extreme” after he hangs the cat (Poe 2). The narrator …show more content…

Poe murders the cat, Pluto, and begins to feel guilty for his actions while at a bar. At the bar, the character sees a cat sitting on the shelf with the liquor that “closely resebl[es Pluto] in every respect but one” which then follows him to his car. The character takes the cat home to then realize a mark on its stomach resembling a nuse, how the narrator killed Pluto. Leaving his guilt behind, the cat then goes missing after murdering his wife. When the police show up at his house for an investigation “a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing if a child” comes from the wall where the narrator buried his wife (Poe 5). The cat then fell out of the wall with his wife which then made the police arrest the character for the murder of his wife. The doppelgänger of the cat portrays suspense because of the cat running away, finding out where it is, then sabotaging the

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352 Words | 2 Pages

The ominous poem “The Raven”, written by Edgar Allen Poe, creates suspense throughout by using a combination of different literary devices, such as hyperbole, repetition and pathos. Although the use of literary devices helps create the mood, the way Poe incorporates a variety of structural elements, which include multiple stanzas, longer sentences and the similarities of structure between the poem and a story, help create a darker mood. The poem is set during the mid nineteenth century, at what is referred to as the witching hour, also known as midnight. The setting alone creates a very dark, suspenseful mood. “The Raven” crafts the idea of suspense by using a range of different types of literary features.

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1520 Words | 7 Pages

In “The Raven,” he suggests that the eyes of the Raven symbolize his inner demons, claiming that they stare into his soul and compress his heart with the guilt he carries. This is evident when he describes the raven’s eyes as “fiery eyes [which had] now burned into my bosom’s core” (Poe 74). The eyes of the raven continually haunt the narrator throughout the poem, and since the poem is a projection of Poe’s emotions, it can be understood that Poe sees the eyes as a constant reminder of the burden of grief he has within himself. Similarly, in “The Black Cat,” the narrator of the story becomes angry with his cat, Pluto, and tears out one of his eyes while under the influence of alcohol. He eventually kills his cat, in a fit of rage, and then believes that the cat comes back to haunt him; He encounters a similar cat that bears a strange resemblance to Pluto.

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1741 Words | 7 Pages

Visions of psychological, emotional, spiritual paralysis and despair run rampant throughout dark romantic literature. Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, two dark Romantics and contemporaries of one another, endeavor to focus on humanity’s dark side, the supernatural and moral truths. Each writer places man at the center-point in their respective stories but Poe’s Gothic format stands out amongst the two writers while seemingly presents its nature within Hawthorne’s writing. Within “The Fall of the House of Usher” and The House of the Seven Gables, Poe and Hawthorne reveal humanity as an evil creature, perpetually plagued with sin, guilt, and morbidity.

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703 Words | 3 Pages

Edgar Allen Poe, a very familiar name in the Dark Romantic period, but many people do not know the role he plays in History. A very complex man, one who drinks away his problems and has a very dark mind. Poe has written many stories and Poems but some of the more popular ones include “The Raven” and “Fall of the House of Usher”. While both “The Raven” and “Fall of the House of Usher” demonstrate similarities with the Supernatural Occurrences and the Metonymy of gloom and horror, a big difference shows up with the narrator of “The Raven” unreliable.

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711 Words | 3 Pages

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

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930 Words | 4 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe’s frightening gothic style poetry and short novels about fear, love, death and horror are prominent to Gothic Literature and explore madness through a nerve-recking angle. The incredible, malformed author, poet, editor and novelist is recognized for his famous classical pieces such as “The Raven”, “Berenice” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, pieces of work that mystically yet magnificently awakens readers with a gloomy spirit. Awakening the subject of madness through written work was viewed as insane during Poe’s times. Yet Poe published some of the worlds most magnificently frightening pieces of literature throughout history. In the following essay I will examine and cautiously analyze

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Many people can recount a night like the narrator’s in “The Raven” when they felt alone and distraught. Overwhelmed by some great sorrow or situation, their mind could not find blissful sleep, but instead wandered to a place of doubt and fear. Though most people’s dreary night did not end with a visit from a talking bird, they can understand the angst of the speaker in “The Raven”. Edgar Allan Poe’s strategic writing, nightmarish effect, and relation to the main character captivates his audience. Poe utilizes specific techniques to bring about his desired effects.

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691 Words | 3 Pages

"The Black Cat," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The House Taken Over" can perfectly articulate transformations that drastically impact their readers and ultimately aid stories meant to scare us. The listed short stories were written by both Edgar Allen Poe and Julio Cortazar, who have been known for their eerie and mysterious gothic literature publications. Within these literary pieces,

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1082 Words | 5 Pages

The dark narratives based on grief, insanity, death, and darkness most commonly correspond with one eerie man. The infamous Edgar Allan Poe was a very talented gothic writer. Poe’s writing was fueled by the grief that stemmed from the death of his mother and wife. Throughout the 19th century, Poe’s pieces became increasingly popular, yet even with the fame he still struggled in a depressive state. Although Poe’s writing consists of supernatural elements, it is heavily focused on the darkness of the human mind, as displayed continuously in his narrative “The Raven”.

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1669 Words | 7 Pages

“ The Fall of the House of Usher “ by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story about a man named Roderick Usher who initiates some events such as evoking his friend The Narrator as a protagonist to the dreadful mansion. The images such as the house and gothic ambience are used to reinforce the idea of giving the mystery to the reader. Edgar Allan Poe uses gothic elements to show how they affect the atmosphere and the characters. In the beginning , the gothic atmosphere of the house is indicated with terrifying images such as “ dull, dark and soundless ” that the feeling of horror vaccinated into reader by the thoughts of the narrator.

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1063 Words | 5 Pages

In the … black chamber, the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings… was ghastly… and produced so wild a look upon… those who entered.” Descriptions using words that are normally associated with mystery and horror add to the reader’s understanding of a scene; and Poe so well exercises the power of words as he uses the description of setting to appeal to the infamous mood of his

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1182 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator takes on a cat and cares for it, however, as his drinking problem progressed, he states, “I grew day by day more moody… my disease grew upon me.” (Poe, 4). After a night out drinking, he decides to cut out one of the cat’s eyes and ultimately, kills the cat. Later, another cat strangely identical to the first cat with one eye comes around and as the narrator tries to kill the second cat he ends up killing his wife instead. He buries the body of his wife and the second cat behind a wall and police later hear the cat calling out from inside the wall.

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264 Words | 2 Pages

A literary work may be eerie to an extent of almost seducing the thought of darkness. “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Edgar Allan Poe, consists of woeful diction, narrator point of view, and gothic symbolism, which all convey a gloomy mood. With the use of woeful diction, a feeling of darkness is transmitted. Throughout the short story, Poe utilizes terms such as “dull” and “dark” which instantly give the sense of both.

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854 Words | 4 Pages

It is also an unusual situation, because in the story, after he hanged the cat and went to sleep, his house suddenly burns out of nowhere (“I was aroused…” | Paragraph 10), and the members of the household, including the man, successfully escaped, and pluto, the cat he hanged, has resurrected into another black cat (“It was a black

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910 Words | 4 Pages

“Pluto – this was the cat’s name – was my favorite pet and playmate” (Poe 520). This man is more violent and he hangs and burns that cat he adored. The narrator is not so lucky though, because another black cat follows and haunts him on his way home. This cat also drives him crazy and he tries to kill the cat but ends up killing his wife instead. The narrator buries his wife in the wall and when the police come looking for her body, the cat helps them find her corpse.

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