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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
In five pages this paper examines how Poe creatively employs the literary devices of atmosphere and/or tension in these four short stories. Six sources are listed in the bibliography.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGpoetales.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Gothic Romanticism employed various types of literary elements and devices to create an atmosphere of terror and an aura of emotional tension. In such works, atmosphere can be
established in a particular setting, but it can also be developed through the anxieties of the protagonist with the tension residing predominantly in "the corridors of the psyche" (Hayes 75).
Gothic literature relies upon a style in which the elements are arranged like puzzle pieces that fit around a tightly woven theme developed by the authors uses of sound
and visual imagery (Cortazar 25). No American author possessed a greater mastery of the Gothic genre than Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Four of Poes greatest short stories -
"The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Black Cat" - utilize atmosphere and/or tension to heighten each tales terrifying impact upon their readers.
With each page turned, the reader feels as if he or she is occupying the same cramped atmospheric space and is both horrified and perversely titillated by what is
to come. "The Tell-Tale Heart" was first published in 1843 in the Boston magazine Pioneer, then revised and published in its present form in the Broadway Journal (Magistrale 81).
Steeped in Gothic tradition, the theme involves one mans descent into total madness, which is enhanced by an "atmosphere of isolation" (Magistrale 101). Quickly established is a sense of
confinement as the protagonist is imprisoned by his own insanity and the burden of his guilty conscience after he murders an old man. In this story, a foreboding atmosphere
is generated through sounds of creaking hinges and repetitive words, such as "very, very slowly" (Poe 139). In fact, very, very is repeated three times throughout the story to
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