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Suspense In Edger Allen Poe's The Black Cat

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In the words of Stephen King "monsters are real and ghosts are real to they live inside us and sometimes they win." This is shown in Edger Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" when the narrator starts to lose his sanity to alcoholism. As the narrator starts to lose his sanity he commits a series of violent and criminal acts of which he feels no remorse. In Poe's "The Black Cat" he uses many literary devices such as onomatopoeia, foreshadowing, and imagery to develop suspense.
Poe uses many different forms of literary devices to develop suspense one of which is onomatopoeia. Four days after the assassination a party of police arrived to investigate. As they entered the basement the narrator began to get overconfident in his actions pertaining to the hiding of the body. Whilst in the basement the narrator taps his cane on the side of the wall where the body is hidden, and as soon as he did so he heard "a howl- a wailing shriek." (Poe 6) This sound that Poe uses creates anxiety in the readers mind my describing the sounds of a terrifying beast. …show more content…

At the beginning of the narrative the narrator states "tomorrow I die." (Poe 1) Because of this statement the reader may feel a sense of wondering as to what will happen. Although this does seem to give the ending away it still creates anxiety in the readers mind by giving them no clue as to how the narrator ends up in this position. For the longest time the patch of white hair on the narrator's second black cat was indistinct and shapeless. Very slowly, little by little the patch changed itself into a shape, a very distinct shape "of the gallows."(Poe 4) This could create a sense of impatience in the reader’s mind. By making the patch into the shape of the gallows, Poe develops a sense of tension, because the gallows is a method of execution and the method of execution that will soon be placed upon the

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