Edgar Allan Poe's short story
Name: Bharti Dharaiya
M.A English semester: 3
Roll no: 03
Batch: 2019 - 2021
Enrollment No: 2069108420190008
Email id: bhartidharaiya123@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S. B Gardi, Department of English, MKBU
Paper no- 10 American literature
Topic : Edgar Allen Poe's short story
Introduction :
"The Black Cat", "The Cask of Amontillado","The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Gold-Bug", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Purloined Letter" is a selected story of Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe is Famous for his story and poems. Many scholars divide Poe's short fiction into two categories: horror tales and detective stories. Poe's horror tales typically revolve around characters who have reached states of extreme alienation, terror, and madness and often contain supernatural elements.
About Edgar Allan Poe :
Edgar Allan Poe born January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849. He was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic.
Today, Poe is regarded as the father of modern horror, science fiction, and detective stories.
Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. He is also generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
His Famous Works:
Tales
"The Black Cat"
"The Cask of Amontillado"
"A Descent into the Maelström"
"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"
"The Fall of the House of Usher"
"The Gold-Bug"
"Hop-Frog"
"The Imp of the Perverse"
"Ligeia"
"The Masque of the Red Death"
"Morella"
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
"The Oval Portrait"
"The Pit and the Pendulum"
"The Premature Burial"
"The Purloined Letter"
"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
"Loss of Breath".
Some select stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
A reading of Poe’s short horror story "The Black Cat":
The Black Cat’ was first published in August 1843 in the Saturday Evening Post. It’s one of Poe’s shorter stories and one of his disturbing focus on cruelty towards animals, murder, guilt told by narrator.
The narrator has a tenderness and humanity to fondness for animals. After marrying, he and his wife gathered a number of pets, a black cat, named Pluto. After years the narrator became more irritable and prone to snap. One night, he was drunk and thought the black cat was avoiding him and he picked up the animal. The animal bit him on the hand, and the narrator pen-knife from his pocket and gouged out one of the cat’s eyes. The cat seems to recover but he takes the poor cat out into the garden and hangs it from a tree. Later that night, the narrator wakes to find his house on fire, and he, his wife, and his servant, barely escape alive. All of the narrator’s wealth is lost in the flames. After hanging the cat on one of the walls, the dead cat became embedded in the plaster.
The narrator is befriended by a black cat he found everywhere. The cat takes a shine to the narrator, so he and his wife take it in as their pet.
Once he tried to kill all animals and his wife stopped him between the knife snatch to his wife. He killed his wife and hid her body in place. When police came to investigate and found the body of his wife, there was also a cat near the dead body.
👉Some point of critical views :
The Black Cat’ by announcing that he dies tomorrow; it becomes clear that he is to be executed for the murder of his wife.
In the genre that Poe helped to create, science fiction, who remarked: ‘How we behave toward cats here below determines our place in heaven.'
In the story the narrator found violent cruelty towards his cat.
Critical Analysis "The Cask of Amontillado" :
In the title we have the word Cask, which means wine barrel, but it is derived from the same root word used to form casket, meaning coffin, so since the title the author tells us that the story is about the coffin of Amontillado.
The story summarizes the irony in which the relationship between Montresor and Fortunato is presented by Poe.
Cask of Amontillado is a story about the characteristics of “power relations” and “social status.”
Critics say that Montresor is reacting so violently to just one incident. But Baraban argues that insult, unlike an injury which gives negativity to socially equal enemies, insult also involves contempt.
Baraban’s claim that Montresor is sane and is justified in his murderous actions. This Marxist like criticism of “The Cask of Amontillado” provides a deeper understanding of the events and reveals much about the characters as well as the overall thematic statement about the story.
“The Cask of Amontillado” is unique detective story in which we wonder “who did it” but instead wonder why the murder happened in the first place.
Critical Analysis of "The Fall of the House of Usher :
In the fall of the House of Usher the symbolism adopted in this fiction. The title is the fall of the House of Usher. I think the fall not only refers to the house’s collapse, but also the fall of the Usher family. The house also refers to both the house and the family.
The narrator of "House of Usher" is planning to stay at this very residence. He has received an urgent letter from the owner, Roderick Usher, who is suffering from a nervous illness and desires the narrator's company urgently.
The gothic style is the Beginning of the story. The narrator’s dismal mood as if the physical world is connected to him. This is typical of Gothic literature. The bleak horror of this scene is bound to correspond to greater horrors.
The narrator tries to use reason and science to explain the causes of the house.
The narrator of "House of Usher" describes that looking down into the water and feeling his superstition about the house increase within him or not . He explains that feelings of terror increase the more one becomes conscious of them.
Critical Analysis of "The Purloined Letter" :
The Purloined Letter” establishes a new genre of short fiction in American literature: the detective story. Poe considered “The Purloined Letter” his best detective story, and critics have long identified the ways in which it redefines the mystery genre. It is a story about a stolen letter. Letter stolen in shuttle way. All knows who is the stoller of the letter. Further that all find letters stolen in shuttle way.
The story has been traditionally regarded as detective fiction. It has been the subject of intense scholarly debate, notably between French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who supports the story as a model of ambiguous narrative, and French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who maintained that it was a sexual allegory.
Critical Analysis of "The Tell-Tale Heart" :
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is about the guilt of a bad decision and how that guilt comes back to drive the said person insane. This story shows that everyone makes bad choices in life, so be prepared to handle the consequences. The guilt will weigh heavily on you, appearing to seep into your life, exposing you. Poe was dead on when we wrote this story every single one of us has done something that we knew was wrong and had to bear the guilt. Whether we have found money and kept it instead of turning it in or cheated on a test, we have always harbored that fear of getting caught. In The Tell-Tale Heart Poe exemplifies that we must own up to our misdeeds.
There are two physical settings in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”: the narrator shares the house with old man where the murder take place and where narrator tell his story.
The story depends on their central question: why does the narrator kill the old man? He says he has no personal animosity toward him, that he does not want his money, that the old man has not injured him in any way.
The mysterious motivation in the story is Poe’s concept of a central idea is eye. The details about the eye, there are two other sets of details repeated throughout the story: the narrator’s identification with the old man and the idea of time.
Poe stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart” suggests that when one becomes aware of the ultimate destiny of all living things that humans are born only to die.
Conclusion :
The conclusion of Poe's short story is that the stories are created or written in detective form or fiction. Poe is a very popular author of short stories but his greatest appeal comes from his horror or Gothic tales. Gothic fiction as an art form is one of a very recent origin.
Work Citation :
Critical Analysis Research paper - Barbieux Writing Portfolio, https://sites.google.com/site/barbieuxwritingportfolio/critical-analysis-research-pape, December 04, 2020.
Poe's Stories: The Fall of the House of Usher Summary & Analysis, https://www.litcharts.com/lit/poe-s-stories/the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher, December 04, 2020
Reading to Learn English, https://www.usalearns.org/reading-to-learn-english,December 04, 2020.
The Purloined Letter, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Purloined-Letter, December 04, 2020.
The Tell-Tale Heart, https://www.enotes.com/topics/tell-tale-heart/critical-essays,December 04, 2020.
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