Paper no 10 American Literature

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Characteristics of Poe’s short stories/ writing/ structure 

Name : Vadher Arti Hareshbhai

Roll no : 5

Year: 2016-18

M.A. semester :3

Paper no : 10 American Literature

Email id : artivadher10@gmail.com

Assignment topic : Characteristics of Poe’s short stories/ writing/ structure

Submitted to : smt.S.B.Gardi, Department of English.

              
 Introduction :

                                    The Gothic Romantic Movement combined elements of horror and romance – much like our thriller and horror films today. By the time Poe came along, people weren’t writing as many horror stories – the genre had fallen out of favor somewhat, but Poe was one of the main writers who reinterpreted and refreshed the genre. The Romantics focused on awe, trepidation, and terror and the Gothics focused on the mysterious, such as hidden passageways, ghosts, screams, and magic. So when the two are combined, such as Poe did, you end up with a whole lot of creepy.

                                                          Edgar Allan Poe, an important writer and a poet, during the Victorian Gothic period is credited with producing many tales of mystery, and terror. Poe’s first collection of short stories “Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque” was published in 1839.Poe’s imaginative writings within several different modes of discourse show how Poe both followed yet departed from a variety of literary approaches and genres. In ‘Poe and Gothic Tradition’, Benjamin Franklin Fisher begins by placing Poe among Anglo-American Gothic novelists and then provides close readings of several of Poe’s Gothic tales to show how he manipulated and challenged the conventions of gothic fiction and horror. Also best known for his tales of mystery and macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of short story and is considered the inventor of detective fiction genre.

                                                          Poe's statement not only furnishes a negative basis for telling what a short story is not, but it Also offers a positive foundation upon which we can establish a definition of the short story which declares that a short story is a brief tale which can be told or read at one sitting.

                                                         This definition requires two things of the story: (1) that it shall be short and (2) that it shall possess coherence sufficient to hold the reader's or listeners unflagging interest from beginning to end.

                        Some North American View about Short story:

                                  Poe, in his criticism already quoted, maintained that ir? order to produce a true short story an author must not only make his tale short and to the point, but must also fashion it with deliberate care so that it will produce a single effect; and this statement has been accepted with more or less un questioning faith by practically every man who has written authoritatively upon the short story since Poe's time.

                  Brander Matthewsdeclares that " the short story is the single effect."

                Professor Bliss Perry, “while rejecting many of Mr.Matthews's conclusions, agrees with him that the short storyof the nineteenth century is set off from those that preceded it by the “new attitude of the contemporary shortstory writer toward his material, in his conscious effort toachieve under certain conditions a certain effect."

                          Professor Canby says that“Poe succeeded in his work by fixing the attention upon the climax of his story, so that the reader sees, feels, thinks of the 'unique effect 'of the story and of nothing else. If the modern short story has a technique, here it is ; if it is an invention, Poeinvented it."

Here we saw that poe’s work is prominently as a story writer but writing of story is different away from Hoarer or Climax through talk story talking. Here I have put an image about how horror or suspense thriller through to story represents their character as:

   Allan Poe’s also very famous for Gothic form of literature of many of story his was physiological to explain. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition

Some sources say Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul."
  All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost. Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.
The actual cause of death remains a mystery.
Poe’s greatest literary achievement was his renovation of terror tale to entertain by means of curdling the blood. 

He realized at the outset of his career that Horror was eminently compatible with psychological plausibility in literature.

·                       Here First Example of one story name was ‘The Fall Of  House of Usher

·                     The House is full of Mysteries.

·                     The House created the image of coolness, where nobody can live.teries.

·                     The description of the house, Madeline thumping desperately

·                     in the coffin, the storm, wall with hanging shield, clamor of falling

·                     shield, slow opening of the door etc.

·                     Snow symbolizes death.

·                     The real essence of the short story is in the ‘Effect’-the effect of Terror, Horror…hair raising experience.

·                     Entombing of Madeline is full of Terror.

·                     Also some observation like as a poe’s story: 

                                                                                                                                                                

Psychological Dimension:

·                   The story depicts the struggle within the soul.

·                   Roderick Usher, his sister Madeline, and the house all shared one common soul.

                        Next we discuss that Poe’s story "The Tell-Tale Heart" first published in January 1843. It is a gothic story which involved the psychology of man that how psychology operates and it draws man to become devil. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sense (sanity), while describing a murder he committed.

“TRUE! --Nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” – This is the starting of the story.

Throughout the reading of story, reader can understand that there is a factor of Psychology, that how its operate and how it inspires human to do some deed. Here reader can apply psychology of that servant that the Vulture eye of Old man, leads him to do murder of an old man.  Let’s discuss some psychology aspect of narrator.

Vulture Eye

v Id, Ego, Superego,

v Mental Conflict

v Guilt and Innocence

v Sanity and Insanity

v Fear and Terror

v Attempt of Crime

v Acceptance of Crime

To begin to understand the motive of the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” it is necessary to first analyze Poe’s life. Throughout his life, he lost nearly everyone that he loved, whether it be by leaving (his father), their deaths (his mother and wife/first cousin), or simply growing apart (his foster family). Due to all of these incidents, it is very possible that Poe developed abandonment issues; Poe was most likely very afraid of losing any more people that he cared about unexpectedly.Poe’s stories often take place in dark, mysterious places. In spite of focusing largely on horror and suspense, Poe writes about complex matters like grief and love.Most of the stories that we read in today’s modern world trace a great impact on our mind. But the question is how does the author keep the reader excited and focused? The answer is “Suspense”. Suspense is the type of writing skill that the authors use to give the readers, uncertainty about the conclusion and it becomes interesting for the readers to wonder and the want to read more. Here I share image this may be think helpful to understand how the suspense create or development of reader mind. Also here critical evaluate feature of Mystery,Horror, or Suspense.

The genre of Poe’s works, their plot structure, type of narration, word choice, imagery, devices with the help of Poe creates and heightens the effect of suspense and horror. Works such as “The Black Cat” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” serve as vivid examples of Poe’s effective horror creating technique.

When the story opens, we are confronted with a gloomy atmosphere. When his eyes fall upon the House of Usher he says, “A sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”and he is further horrified by images he sees of the house in the tarn. Here, Poe succeeds in creating a sense of fear and suspense in our minds. There is also a use of colour imagery which creates an impact on our senses and feelings made by the shades of light.Poe paints his gloomy settings with four main colours: Black, Red, Grey and Yellow.

I said to him -- "My dear Fortunato, you are   luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."- THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO  

  Ø  In this story Unreliable Narrator 1^st person narrator that some reason tells an incorrect vision of the story.

  Ø  Usually the reader trusts that the narrator is giving ab accurate version of the story.         

  Ø  With Unreliable narrator the reader can’t trust the narrator.

                  Also  many point of story about setting or background of carnival. So that What happens during Carnival

  Ø  Carnival is a time of EXCESS and INDULGENCE.

  Ø  Banging upon food and alchol is common.

  Ø  Partying in the streets and hidden are enjoyed.

Any time you deal with rules for the short story, inevitably, you’ve got to consider Edgar Allan Poe.  It was he who in 1842 virtually invented the genre as we know it today, taking it from the earlier form, “the tale,” and defining what makes a good story tick in his review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales.  While experienced writers break Poe’s rules as often as they do anyone else’s, knowledge of these rules is fundamental to any beginning short story career.  Briefly, Poe said that a short story should:

1.  be able to be read in one sitting.  Poe defined this as being from one-half hour to one or two hours.  Nowadays, with television, radio, playstations and Ipod for alternative entertainment, this may seem like a long time.  But the one sitting rule is still a good one, even if that one sitting is five minutes.

2. strive for unity of effect.  Poe believed the aim of the short story was to create a mood, an ambience, or as he called it, an “effect.” The effect Poe himself often sought to create was terror or horror.  While many writers today completely ignore this rule, you may notice in reading short stories a single effect--nostalgia, sadness, elation, whatever.

3. begin with the first sentence.Obviously.   But it means more than    that.  Poe insisted that the effect should be created from the very first line.  His best short stories, such as “The Tell-tale Heart,” attempt to create this effect from line one:  “True--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and still am;  but why will you say that I am mad?  The disease had sharpened my senses, not dulled them.  Above all was the sense of hearing acute.  I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.  I heard many things in hell.  How then, am I mad?”  Well, this fella does seem to be one can short of a six-pack.  And we know it from line one.

4.  have nothing in it that detracts from the design.  The story should lead directly and inevitably to the conclusion without excess or digressive material.  Get to the point and stay there.

5. aim for truth.  Not truth, literally. That is, you can still include events that might not literally occur.  Lord knows Poe did.  He wrote all sorts of wild stories, and so can you.  But he believed that the story should remain true to the way people really act in a given situation, true to the human heart.

6.  stress imagination, invention, creation and originality.  

It’s no secret that Poe’s emphasis on effect is no longer always the driving force in the short story.  Contemporary writers have turned their rules every which way but loose.  But don’t forget these concepts as you begin to read the great short stories in our unit.

                    There are Element of horror or gothic is much effect is darken with evil thought represented. Here we first for when talk about Edger Allan Pow’s that I have remember many writer of Gujarati or also Hindi language literature. I have some observe like compare to work about Poe’s short story is same as Guajarati language literature was name that H.N.Golibar.He was famous for hoarer or suspense’s thriller story writer of Guajarati language. Some story example regarded as:

The Literary style of Edgar Allan:

•         Best known fiction works are Gothic

•         Most recurring themes deal with the questions of death and lost love

•         Considered part of the dark romanticism genre

•         In his short Story, “The Tell-Tale Heart” Poe writes about Murder, Insanity, Obsession and Guilt

Literary Style and Themes

•         In his poem, "The Raven", he uses many different elements as symbols. A raven is usually the symbol of something dark and sinister. A raven is also a sign of death. This poem is a poem of losing hope, and his dealings with his dead love Lenore, and how the raven torments him into insanity. Throughout the poem, the narrator is tormented by his lost love, Lenore, who came back in the form of a raven.

•         In The Raven, Poe starts off the story with "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.”

•         This sentence identifies how he sets the setting for the story. This sentence makes you think of a dark lonely night. This is a good example of how Poe's literary style is dark.

   Conclusion:

In this sum up topic we can say that Poe's short story are very interestings deals with horror or gothic to expalin pshychological thinking.With these examples of characters, we can say that, Poe’s characters have no morality and human values, but they are presented with evil deeds, monstrous figures and criminal minds.Poe’s most of the tales are psychological, horror, gothic, detective, supernatural, mysterious, they are related to crime and have characters who are abnormal, murderers and suffering from their own mentality.