This essay will discuss the themes in Poe’s writing that mirror his personal life and, in addition, the fear and supernatural motivators for his characters. First, I will discuss Poe’s background and explore how he became best known as a poet for his tales of mystery and macabre.
In retrospect he was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father an actor abandoned the family when he was one years old and his mother an actress died of tuberculosis when 2 yrs old. His foster parents cared for him as a young child and their last names were Allan. This is where his full name Edgar Allan Poe comes from. When he was in college he wrote all of his walls and came of gloomy and depressed to some classmates. He removed his self from the college because of gambling debts. He marries his very young cousin Virginia Clemm when she was 13yrs old; she dies in 1847 from a long and hard battle with tuberculosis. After one year of his beloved wife death, he tries to commit suicide and has more of a weakness to drink. He was known to be unable to take even a little alcohol without a change of personality.
Furthermore in the poem “the raven” the story is basically about a poor guy whose wife died, and who goes insane, accompanied by the hallucination of a raven that comes through the window, sits above the door and crows “nevermore”. Considering the poem the raven was published in January of 1845 and his wife died in 1847 so the poem couldn’t be talking about her death and how he feels. But it could be talking about how he felt when she diagnosed with tuberculosis in January of 1842. So when the raven was published she was more than likely very sick and he knew she going to die. Poe probably couldn’t take watching her sickening and ro...
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^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 312–313. ISBN 0-06-092331-8
^ Rust, Richard D. "Punish with Impunity: Poe, Thomas Dunn English and 'The Cask of Amontillado'" in The Edgar Allan Poe Review, Vol. II, Issue 2 – Fall, 2001, St. Joseph's University.
^ Reynolds, David F. "Poe's Art of Transformation: 'The Cask of Amontillado' in Its Cultural Context", as collected in The American Novel: New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0521422433 pp. 96–7
^ a b Benton, Richard P. (June 1996). "Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado': Its Cultural and Historical Backgrounds". Poe Studies 29: 19–27.
^ Burton R. Pollin (1970). "Notre-Dame de Paris in Two of the Tales". Discoveries in Poe. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 24–37.
The mood established by Edgar Allan Poe in his short story, "The Cask of Amontillado," plays a crucial role in conveying to the reader his underlying theme. For example, when Montresor, the narrator, st...
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Magistrale, Tony. "The Art of Poetry." Student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Westport, Conn. ;London: Greenwood, 2001. 39-41. Print.
The disposition of Edgar Allan Poe, which is crucial to the development of a reader’s understanding, can be identified and interpreted in all of his texts. We see present his unnatural relation between the orders of things that are usually separate like rationality and madness. His representation of events which are uncanny, or melodramatically violent, and often deal with aberrant psychological states that get the reader and protagonists to question their senses. Poe’s use of pathos to develop his characters and the emotions of the readers are evidently critical to his stories as well. As we see in “The Cask of Amontillado” resentment is what drove our narrator to commit the cynical act of entombing his enemy alive then burning him. Emotions like fear, anger, and sadness are emotions that are also evident his other stories. In “The Cask of Amontillado” our phenomenological experience occurs right when the story begins as we see the story develops in the first-person point of view. Poe
Edgar Allan Poe is a famous writer in writing detective stories and horror stories. One of his horror stories, “The Cask of Amontillado” was talking about how a man took his revenge to his friend. However, to look deeply in this story, I found that this story was not just simply a horror tale about how a man gets his revenge in the safest way. Instead, it also demonstrates much irony in several areas: the title, the event, the season, the costume, the environment, the characters’ personalities, a man’s dignity and cockiness and at the end, the public order. he are
“The Cask of Amontillado” is a ravenous and dark story by Edgar Allen Poe. The story tells of a man bound to find vengeance for the heinous crime of humiliation. Poe’s beautiful imagery and stunning symbolism only add to this already impeccable story. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” displays multiple symbols through Montresor in three key ways: his thoughts, his words, and his actions.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “ The Cask Of Amontillado.” Heritage Of American Literature .Ed. james E. Miller.Vol.2.Austin:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1991.20.Print.
“The Cask of Amontillado” is a dark piece, much like other works of Edgar Allan Poe, and features the classic unreliable narrator, identified by himself only as Montresor. This sinister central character is a cold ruthless killer that is particularly fearsome because he views murder as a necessity and kills without remorse. Montresor is a character who personifies wickedness. Poe uses this character and his morally wrong thoughts and actions to help the reader identify with aspects of the extreme personage, allowing them to examine the less savory aspects of their own. The character of Montresor detailing the glorious murder he committed is a means of communicating to the reader that vengeance and pride are moral motivators that lead to treacherous deeds and dark thoughts.
Edgar Allen Poe’s gruesomely fascinating tale of vengeance and murder, “The Cask of Amontillado”, achieves its effect only through its usage of the first person point of view. This unusual perspective enables the reader to view the characters and conflicts through the eyes of the narrator, as he first discusses and justifies, and eventually, carries out his plans for the ruthless murder of his friend. The eerie tone and disorienting and materialistically-related setting of the story contribute to its theme of defending one’s honor and name and avenging all wrongdoings, even something so small as an insult.
"The Cask of Amontillado" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's greatest stories. In this story Poe introduces two central characters and unfolds a tale of horror and perversion. Montresor, the narrator, and Fortunato, one of Montresor's friends, are doomed to the fate of their actions and will pay the price for their pride and jealousy. One pays the price with his life and the other pays the price with living with regret for the rest of his life. Poe uses mystery, irony, and imagery to create a horrifying, deceptive, and perverse story.
In his short story, The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allen Poe produces a macabre tale about pride, revenge, and deception. The haunting tale is narrated by the vengeful Montresor who seeks to redress the wrong doing of his peer, Fortunato. He allows his pride to overtake his humanity and consequently lures Fortunato to his murderous death. His plan, “I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes it redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.” (Luciano 68) becomes the driving force throughout the story. Critique Bill Delaney offers an eloquent analysis of the piece. He argues that the central theme of the story be that of closure and writes that” the story proceeds from cold fury to peace of mind” (40). The story captures the essence of revenge in a gothic yet effective way. It undoubtedly leaves the reader in a chaotic mix of puzzling emotions. The reader shares with Montresor feelings of satisfaction, pity, and closure; all of which are observational emotions within Poe’s context and within life.
The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe is a short story told in the gothic genre. Although this story was written decades after the popularity of the genre, The gothic genre through its descriptions of the atmosphere as well as its use of grotesque and macabre imagery creates a sense of alienation, chaos, entrapment, uncertainty, and terror in the reader. Gothic literature often deals with themes of death, fears and anxieties, good vs evil, estrangement, and revenge. Furthermore, gothic literature often ends with a sense of moral closure and resolution. The Cask of Amontillado use of gothic conventions can be seen in its setting. However, the story’s unconventional use of irony and omission of moral closure adds to the psychological
Womack, Martha. “Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” The Poe Decoder. Christoffer Nilsson, 1997. n.pag. Web. 6 Nov. 2011 .