Suspense in a story is one of the most important parts of the work. Suspense gets the reader hooked to that story and hungry for more. Anticipating what will happen next. Waiting and waiting for either a good outcome or bad. Edgar Allan Poe is a genius with suspense and in his story "The Pit and the Pendulum" and the poem "Annabel Lee", he creates suspense by using an unreliable narrator, imagery, and diction. Using these three elements, he builds suspense in the reader causing the reader to want to read on and see what comes next. Poe builds suspense in The Pit in the Pendulum by using an unreliable narrator when he says,"It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour, (for I could take but imperfect note of time) before I again cast my eyes upward," (269). This clearly shows that the narrator is unreliable because even he does not know how much time has passed and the fear of the unknown creates suspense in the reader. Along with the unreliable narrator in "The Pit and the Pendulum", Poe also uses an unreliable narrator in "Annabel Lee". This can be seen when the narrator says, "With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven coveted her and me. And this was the …show more content…
In “The Pit and the Pendulum” the narrator recites,"Down- Steadily down it crept," (270). He then goes on to repeat the word “down” at the beginning of the next few paragraphs. Every time the word is repeated it is intended to build suspense and emphasize the next “down” even more than the last. It causes the reader to read faster and with more emotion building suspense. Additionally, in “Annabel Lee” Poe also uses diction to create suspense when the speaker says,"That the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee,” (Line 28-29). The word choices of "chilling and killing" creates suspense in the reader and manifests an erie feeling because it causes the reader to experience a chilling
Edgar Allan Poe, Born Jan 19 1809, was better at writing suspenseful stories, usually with a twist at the end. In the story, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, Poe describes an unnamed narrator telling the story of a man who was put in prison, drugged, and sentenced to death
Suspense is the build up of anxiety or excitement in a story. It is an incredibly useful literary element. People like to read suspenseful stories, and/or watch suspenseful shows and movies because suspense gets their hearts racing. Suspense in movies and books might keep the audience intrigued and make them wonder what will happen next. People also like suspense because they might like trying to figure out what will happen on their own. This will keep the audience intrigued because they want to know how close they were to the exact answer. There are many stories that display suspense and many different authors who wrote them. One book that used suspense was Cujo, by Stephen King. Cujo was a dog that was bitten by a bat. He then turns into
Suspense is the feeling of uncertainty or excitement, in waiting for an outcome or decision. Edgar Allan Poe uses suspense in his story “Masque of the Red Death” by using objects and great descriptive detail. Poe’s story is about a prince that tries to escape from the inevitable. He tries to lock himself away from the ‘red death’ and has a masquerade ball that doesn’t end happily. Prince and all of his guests die inside or around the seventh apartment room. The seventh room is preceded by six colored rooms which are meant to symbolize either the stages of life, or the seven sins. Inside the last room there are black velvet tapestries that hang all over the ceiling and down the walls. The window panes are a deep blood red color which gives the room an unwelcoming atmosphere. On the western wall, there is a gigantic clock of a deep black wood. Inside it has a pendulum that swings back and forth with a dull monotonous clang. When the minute hand marks a new hour, there is a clear, loud, deep sound, which can be heard from far away. Although it can give off an eerie feeling, the great eb...
Poe creates a dark and tense atmosphere in the Pen and the Pendulum by starting the book out with the narrator receiving a death sentence from the court for an unknown crime. Poe uses a lot of suspense in this story. In the Fall of the House of Usher his atmosphere is gloomy and dark. By making the atmosphere like that, this creates imagery so vivid to the reader which helps lead to a sense of emotion while reading this story.
In Poe literature readers will see an abundance of suspense, symbolism, and gothic elements used mostly to create gloomy atmospheres. In "Fall of the House of Usher" Poe uses suspense, symbolism, and gothic elements to create a chilling tone of fear, loneliness, and oppression. In "fall of the house of usher" Poe uses suspense to demonstrate foreshadowing and pacing. For example, as our narrator approaches the castle, he describes it as being "an air of stern, deep...gloom that hung over and pervaded all" to indicate that in reality the fog like gloom is a foreshadowing to the mysteries that lye within the castle.
Edgar Allen Poe is known for his dark yet comedic approach toward the his theme of his stories. Likewise, Poe’s themes have gathered many fans due to his impression of reasoning in his stories. The author uses thinking and reasoning to portray the theme. Poe’s unique diction comprehends with the theme of the story. Poe has a brilliant way of taking gothic tales of mystery, and terror, and mixing them with variations of a romantic tale by shifting emphasis from, surface suspense and plot pattern to his symbolic play in language and various meanings of words.
In “The Landlady,” Dahl uses tone to create suspense at the very end of the story by writing, “’Temple,’ Billy said. ‘Gregory Temple. Excuse my asking, but haven’t there been any other guests here except them in the last two or three years?’ Holding her teacup high in one hand, inclining her head slightly to the left, she looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes and gave him another gentle little smile.’No, my dear,’ she said. ‘Only you.’” This shows suspense by inferring that Billy is going to die. In “A Tell-Tale Heart” Poe uses tone to create suspense by saying, “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 quote illustrates how Poe uses tone to create suspense because the tone of the narrators voice makes the reader want to keep
In the Story The Pit and the Pendulum, the narrator explains that he has been sentenced to death by the Inquisition (the institutionalized persecution of all Protestants and heretical Catholics by the Catholic government in 15th- and 16th-century Spain). The reader however must not get Poe confused with the narrator because the narrator is the one telling the story while Poe is the author of the story. The narrator starts his story by saying he is sick unto death (180). The narrator here is trying to suggest that this sickness is the normal position of a human being; everyone is mortal. He recognizes this in the beginning. "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a story of torture. The punishments that the narrator is about to receive illustrate the power of humans to inflict pain and suffering on others. In addition, though, this story shows that the worst kind of torture is that of uncertainty and fear. Once the narrator understands that he will die from falling into the pit, it is no longer as cruel a punishment as the Inquisitors want to give him. Therefore, each punishment entails some element of pain, but, more importantly, a great deal of mental anguish before death.
In the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe, diction is extensively used to create an air of suspense. Poe’s use of diction along with symbolism contributes to establishing a mood of despair. By using symbolic comparison between the Ushers and their house, the story’s suspense builds and the characteristics of the Ushers are portrayed. Poe’s cunning tactics are evident in the way he achieves a story of both suspense and horror.
Poe, in The Raven, creates a similar sense of dynamic drama. He employs consonance, writing "the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain," and the repeated sounds reflect the ssshing sound curtains make. This consonance creates the eerie atmosphere that perturbs the narrator. Through internal rhyme and polysyndeton, Poe creates an impression of intensifying and rising action. For example, he writes, "but the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token/
The short story is generally a study in human terror. Furthermore, the author explains Poe use of a particular style and technique, to not only create the mood of mystery, but to cause the reader to feel sympathy for the narrator. Poe makes a connection between the storyteller and reader with knowledge and literary craftsmanship.
Edgar Allan Poe has a unique writing style that uses several different elements of literary structure. He uses intrigue vocabulary, repetition, and imagery to better capture the reader’s attention and place them in the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s style is dark, and his is mysterious style of writing appeals to emotion and drama. What might be Poe’s greatest fictitious stories are gothic tend to have the same recurring theme of either death, lost love, or both. His choice of word draws the reader in to engage them to understand the author’s message more clearly. Authors who have a vague short lexicon tend to not engage the reader as much.
In this poem, Poe writes primarily with a combination of iambic and anapestic feet, alternating between tetrameter and trimeter. The word "chilling," however, is permitted in both places it is used, lines fifteen and twenty-five, to retain its jarring trochaic meter (one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable). This is done most probably to utilize the provoking effect of that meter; the death of the speaker's loved one disturbs the rhythm of the poem and startles the reader. End rhyme in the poem alternates lines with a few variations and bears little significance; the repeated rhyming words are: "Lee," "sea," "me," and "we."
Along with imagery and symbolism, Poe incorporates many poetic elements to express his feeling. These include assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. For example ?For the race and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore.? This repeats the vowel sound of ?a?. Poe also used a lot of alliteration. For example, ?Doubting dreaming dreams no mortal level, dared to dream before?. Notice the repetition of the ?d? sound. One last element used in ?The Raven? is rhyme.
The first two stanzas of The Raven introduce you to the narrator, and his beloved maiden Lenore. You find him sitting on a “dreary” and dark evening with a book opened in front of him, though he is dozing more than reading. Suddenly, he hears knocking on his door, but only believes it to be a visitor nothing more. He remembers another night, like this one, where he had sought the solace of his library to forget his sorrows of his long lost beloved, and to wait for dawn. Meanwhile the tapping on his door continues.