The Narrative Techniques Of Poe Essay Research — страница 2

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against his wife and stabs his cat in the eye. By the end of the story, he killed his wife in an attempt to kill the cat. Afterwards, the narrator does not even feel remorse for the wrongful death of his wife. Instead, he is just happy that the cat dissapeared. This is just another instance in which the reader wonders what is the driving force begins the narrator’s insanity. Buranelli, “In both Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” and his “The Black Cat”, the barrators act without conscience. There are no doubts, hesitiations or second thought to impede the narrative. Both narrators just sought revenge” (77). Even though there are many more elements to Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories than just his creative use of narration and setting, these are characteristivs which

has attracted the most attention. Poe has a way of writing in which he does not have to reveal too much, or paint a pretty picture for the reader in order to attract his attention. In D.H. Lawrence’s Studies in Classic American Literature, the author states, “Poe’s narrowness is like that of a sword, not that of a bottleneck: it is effective rather than constricting. Nothing adventitious is in his great stories, only the essentials, the mininum of characterization, plot, and atmosphere. By ridding himself of everything except what is precisely to the point, he achieves unity of effect. ” (66). There is also a prominent distinction between right and wrong in Poe’s tories. Viscous characters tend to come to a bad end. This lets the reader accept these endings as a triumph

of good over evil. As stated by Buranelli: “He has created a universe, given it psychological laws without denying the existence of the moral law, and peopled it with characters appropriate to such a universe. Puttng overt mortality out of bounds helps to give him uniqueness” (74). After researching Edgar Allan Poe more in depth, I now have a much greater respect for him and a slightly different perspective of his stories. While it is still evident to me that narrative style and setting have a great deal to do with the development of Poe’s short stories, I also realise now that we can’t overlap and intertwine with other aspects of the story, making them equally as important. I will end with a quote found in Vincent Buranelli’s Edgar Allan Poe: “Even though Poe is

often looked upon as a gifted psychopath who is describing with consumate artistry his personal instablities and abnormalitiesm the fact remains that his superiority is more than a matter of art. There is a violent realism in his macabre writings unequaled by the Americans who worked in the same genre.” 1. Bloom, Harold, Ed. Modern Critical Views on Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985. 2.Buranelli, Vincent. Edgar Allan Poe. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1977. 3. Lawrence, D.H. Studies in Classic American Literature New York: The Viking Press, 1961. 4.Lawrence D.H. Modern Critical Views on Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985. 5. Wilbur, R. Modern Critical Views on Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea

House Publishers, 1985. 6. Pickering, James. Fiction 100: An Anthology of Short Stories. NJ:Prentice Hall, 1995. 7. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.