Course Paper Ed

Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan
Kazakh Ablaikhan University of International Relations and World languages
Faculty of Philology and Translation

Theme: “Fantastic Stories of Poe”

Prepared by Tairova Nargiza Group: 303 Checked by Vassileva Y. Y. Ten Ya. Ch.

Almaty
2013

Plan:
I. Introduction
II. Main Part 1. Biography of Edgar Allan Poe 2. Edgar Allan Poe 's Fantastic Short Stories 3. Genres 4. Major Themes: 5. Allan Poe 's style of writing 6. Analysis of Poe’s fantastic story “Black cat”
III. Conclusion IV. References

Introduction In my course paper I’m going to talk about Fantastic Stories of Poe. Aim of my course paper is to make research to fantastic stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Most people recognize Poe by his famous poem, "The Raven". Others may have read one of his more popular dark and creepy tales like, "The Fall of the House of Usher" or "The Tell-tale Heart". Poe wrote quite a few gothic stories about murder, revenge, torture, the plague, being buried alive, and insanity. Many modern books and movies have "borrowed" ideas from Poe. Some of Poe 's stories were not well accepted in his day because people were just not ready for them- they were too scary. Many people don 't know that Edgar Allan Poe also wrote stories about adventure on the high seas, buried pirate treasure, and a famous balloon ride. Poe invented the detective story with tales like "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter". Sherlock Holmes and other fictional detectives would later be based on the characters that Poe created. Poe wrote love stories and even a few strange little comedies. He attempted to explain the composition of the universe in a way that sounds a little like quantum physics. While exploring my course paper you 'll see why I think Edgar Allan Poe deserves to be recognized as one of the most original, imaginative, and ingenious authors of our society.

Biography of Edgar Allan Poe

I want to start my course paper with the biography of Edgar Allan Poe. Life of Edgar Allan Poe is full of events, different situations and etc. So, it means that I’ll need to write and write about him but unfortunately, it will take a lot of time and my aim is to make research about his fantastic stories. This is a short biography. I 've tried to compose one short enough to read in a single sitting. Poe 's Childhood Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. That makes him Capricorn, on the cusp of Aquarius. His parents were David and Elizabeth Poe. David was born in Baltimore on July 18, 1784. Elizabeth Arnold came to the U.S. from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805. They had three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. Elizabeth Poe died in 1811, when Edgar was 2 years old. She had separated from her husband and had taken her three kids with her. Henry went to live with his grandparents while Edgar was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan and Rosalie was taken in by another family. John Allan was a successful merchant, so Edgar grew up in good surroundings and went to good schools. When Poe was 6, he went to school in England for 5 years. He learned Latin and French, as well as math and history. He later returned to school in America and continued his studies. Edgar Allan went to the University of Virginia in 1826. He was 17. Even though John Allan had plenty of money, he only gave Edgar about a third of what he needed. Although Edgar had done well in Latin and French, he started to drink heavily and quickly became in debt. He had to quit school less than a year later.
Poe in the Army Edgar Allan had no money, no job skills, and had been shunned by John Allan. Edgar went to Boston and joined the U.S. Army in 1827. He was 18. He did reasonably well in the Army and attained the rank of sergeant major. In 1829, Mrs. Allan died and John Allan tried to be friendly towards Edgar and signed Edgar 's application to West Point. While waiting to enter West Point, Edgar lived with his grandmother and his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. Also living there was his brother, Henry, and young cousin, Virginia. In 1830, Edgar Allan entered West Point as a cadet. He didn 't stay long because John Allan refused to send him any money. It is thought that Edgar purposely broke the rules and ignored his duties so he would be dismissed.
A Struggling Writer In 1831, Edgar Allan Poe went to New York City where he had some of his poetry published. He submitted stories to a number of magazines and they were all rejected. Poe had no friends, no job, and was in financial trouble. He sent a letter to John Allan begging for help but none came. John Allan died in 1834 and did not mention Edgar in his will. In 1835, Edgar finally got a job as an editor of a newspaper because of a contest he won with his story, "The Manuscript Found in a Bottle". Edgar missed Mrs. Clemm and Virginia and brought them to Richmond to live with him. In 1836, Edgar married his cousin, Virginia. He was 27 and she was 13. Many sources say Virginia was 14, but this is incorrect. Virginia Clemm was born on August 22, 1822. They were married before her 14th birthday, in May of 1836. In case you didn 't figure it out already, Virginia was Virgo. As the editor for the Southern Literary Messenger, Poe successfully managed the paper and increased its circulation from 500 to 3500 copies. Despite this, Poe left the paper in early 1836, complaining of the poor salary. In 1837, Edgar went to New York. He wrote "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" but he could not find any financial success. He moved to Philadelphia in 1838 where he wrote "Ligeia" and "The Haunted Palace". His first volume of short stories, "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" was published in 1839. Poe received the copyright and 20 copies of the book, but no money. Sometime in 1840, Edgar Poe joined George R. Graham as an editor for Graham 's Magazine. During the two years that Poe worked for Graham 's, he published his first detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and challenged readers to send in cryptograms, which he always solved. During the time Poe was editor, the circulation of the magazine rose from 5000 to 35,000 copies. Poe left Graham 's in 1842 because he wanted to start his own magazine. Poe found himself without a regular job once again. He tried to start a magazine called The Stylus and failed. In 1843, he published some booklets containing a few of his short stories but they didn 't sell well enough. He won a hundred dollars for his story, "The Gold Bug" and sold a few other stories to magazines but he barely had enough money to support his family. Often, Mrs. Clemm had to contribute financially. In 1844, Poe moved back to New York. Even though "The Gold Bug" had a circulation of around 300,000 copies, he could barely make a living. In 1845, Edgar Poe became an editor at The Broadway Journal. A year later, the Journal ran out of money and Poe was out of a job again. He and his family moved to a small cottage near what is now East 192nd Street. Virginia 's health was fading away and Edgar was deeply distressed by it. Virginia died in 1847, 10 days after Edgar 's birthday. After losing his wife, Poe collapsed from stress but gradually returned to health later that year.
Final Days In June of 1849, Poe left New York and went to Philadelphia, where he visited his friend John Sartain. Poe left Philadelphia in July and came to Richmond. He stayed at the Swan Tavern Hotel but joined "The Sons of Temperance" in an effort to stop drinking. He renewed a boyhood romance with Sarah Royster Shelton and planned to marry her in October. On September 27, Poe left Richmond for New York. He went to Philadelphia and stayed with a friend named James P. Moss. On September 30, he meant to go to New York but supposedly took the wrong train to Baltimore. On October 3, Poe was found at Gunner 's Hall, a public house at 44 East Lombard Street, and was taken to the hospital. He lapsed in and out of consciousness but was never able to explain exactly what happened to him. Edgar Allan Poe died in the hospital on Sunday, October 7, 1849. The mystery surrounding Poe 's death has led to many myths and urban legends. The reality is that no one knows for sure what happened during the last few days of his life.

Edgar Allan Poe 's Fantastic Short Stories Edgar Allan Poe wrote some forty short stories that have been variously categorized as horror, fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and Gothic tales. These are overlapping categories in some cases, particularly in fantastic stories that can be viewed as Gothic, horror, or mere fantasy, to say nothing of others that may have two or more conflicting interpretations, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher." The reason for this ambivalence lies, no doubt, in Poe 's poetics. His writing never seems to stand on the firm ground of a single style; rather, it fluctuates between or combines two styles, one serious and the other humorous (Allen; Thompson, 1973). Despite the surface variety, there are two underlying principles that link all his stories--unity and reason--which may account for the sometimes conflicting categories attributed to his works. I am going to expose Poe 's poetics regarding his fantastic stories relative to the whole of his fictional prose writings. I am interested in pointing out the narrative strategies that he uses for the accomplishment of the fantastic as well as the importance of the unity of effect and the ratiocinative principle in the most important fantastic pieces, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Black Cat," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "Ligeia" and "Berenice." There is more than horror and terror in Poe 's fiction. We must bear in mind that Poe took a genre that had already yielded its best works, namely the Gothic narrative, and transformed it into something new and suited to contemporary readers ' tastes. Scholars such as Clark Griffith and G. R. Thompson have suggested that Poe 's tales are ironic twists of Gothic narratives. What he masterfully achieves is the blending of the Gothic tale regarded as a tale of "German terror" and the tales of psychological derangement. He disregards the common idea that terror had a German origin; he believed it originated in the soul: "If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul" -the soul, or in other words the mind, as Poe exemplifies in most, if not all, of his stories. As I will argue later, most of Poe 's characters suffer a kind of mania that makes them see a distorted reality and is the cause of the fantastic. Before Poe started writing, the fantastic was considered a preternatural event that took place in a setting that was estranged from everyday life. It is one of Poe 's great achievements to have made the fantastic part of common life and to have stripped away its supernatural features. His is a psychological fantastic in most cases. We can include Poe 's fantastic here, provided we add that he favors a psychological explanation, as can be seen in three representative stories, "The Black Cat," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia." By psychological, I mean that real events are not as important as the manner in which the narrators perceive them. It is not really important that the main character in "The Black Cat" actually hears the cat 's meow; what really matters is that he thinks he has heard it and confesses his deed. Similarly, in "Ligeia" the narrator sees Ligeia 's eyes in Lady Rowena 's face, and that is what really counts. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," the mental derangement that the narrator experiences under Roderick 's influence provokes the fantastic: "I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions" . There is also another reason for the fantastic. Roderick thinks that the nature surrounding the house influences the building and exerts its influence upon its inhabitants: Both "Berenice" and "Ligeia" are included within the psychological fantastic. Berenice is presented as a creature, if not actually created, at least heavily determined by the narrator 's mind: I had seen her--not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream--not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such being--not as a thing to admire, but to analyze--not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation . In the case of "Ligeia," the fantastic event, that is the appearance of Ligeia in the person of Lady Rowena, has a psychological reason as well, though in this case the opium administered to the narrator may also have distorted the perception of reality. "The Black Cat" is one story in which the hesitation between the pure fantastic and the distorted perception of reality is most clearly present. The narrator does not fully explain if the cat 's meow is heard by the policemen or whether he is the only person who hears and sees the animal. He simply says, "the corpse . . . stood erect before the eyes of the spectators", obviously referring to his wife 's corpse. "The Tell-Tale Heart" presents a clear case of obsessive madness. The fantastic is purely psychological and is provoked by the narrator 's obsession with the old man 's eye and his assassination. When the policeman asks him about the old man 's disappearance, he denies that he may have been involved in the murder, but he hears the old man 's heartbeats: "It grew louder--louder--louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?" All these events have a psychological origin. Poe is greatly interested in the clinical representation of mental excitement, especially, as Robert L. Carringer argues, "those forms of terror that are aroused by the prospect of death or derangement for his narrators" . In most of Poe 's stories, narrators suffer from a type of mania, either melancholy or madness, that distorts reality. Poe was acquainted with contemporary scientific theories and was attracted to phrenology, mesmerism, and psychology. He frequently mentioned hysteria, melancholy, madness, catalepsy, and other diseases of the mind that were prevalent in his age. In "Ligeia," the narrator falls into a state of sadness caused by the loss of a beloved person. This leads him to seek a replacement in the person of Lady Rowena. He refuses to accept that he has lost Ligeia. Moreover, he confesses that he cannot remember her family 's name or the details about their first meeting (Collected Works, 2: 310). He is forced to accept that reality cannot be avoided indefinitely. His obsession with Ligeia 's eyes can be equated with the cousin 's obsession with Berenice 's teeth. In both cases, the narrators focus their attention on a part of the beloved 's body as a substitute for their losses. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," the narrator presents the reader with a landscape view that provokes in him a feeling of gloom (Collected Works, 2: 397). The narrator describes the shades of the evening, the melancholy they produce, the gloom that he feels, and the lack of sublimity in the scene. It is the whole atmosphere, gloomy and nightmarish, that creates the fantastic element in "Usher." This has to be seen in psychological terms, that is to say, subjective terms and not in terms of ambiguity or ambivalence, as Todorov argues. By creating a propitious state of mind in the characters, the fantastic may justifiably materialize. All this poses the problem of the narrator 's reliability, discussed by Patrick F. Quinn (1981a: 303-312; 1981b: 341-353) and Thompson (1981: 313-340). Some critics have seen Roderick and Madeline as the narrator 's projections of the mind (Wilbur 255-277; Hoffmann 295-316; Thompson, 1973: 87-98). However, I would say that rather than projections he is influenced by the ambience that surrounds him, in which, we must not forget, Roderick and Madeline are the central characters. In "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrators are obsessed with their supposed madness, which they insistently deny. The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" says, "True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" (Collected Works, 3: 792), and in "The Black Cat," "mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not" (Collected Works, 3: 849). It is this obsession, along with the extremely narrow point of view of their narratives, that makes the fantastic appear. In the first stage of his career, Poe favored those settings might be similar to those of British Gothic stories: that is, abbeys, castles, or ancient houses located in Europe. Examples include the locations in "The Oval Portrait," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "William Wilson," "Metzengerstein," "Berenice," and Ligeia." He would place fantastic stories in a remote country that was at the same time familiar so readers could identify them as Gothic or fantastic. He would also use a remote time to make it believable, not only because readers were accustomed to a sort of medieval age but also because the supposedly fantastic event could not be ascertained or denied. Gradually, Poe seemed to realize that settings need not be distanced from the readers ' ordinary locations. Instead, the modern city could be a suitable scenario for the psychological fantastic. This was not a source external to the narrator, nor was it preternatural; consequently, the setting could be and should be as realistic as possible for contemporary readers. Otherwise there would not be a congruent relationship between the nature of the fantastic and the setting. "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" are two good examples of this argument. They are not located in a distant somewhere or in a remote period, although there is the necessary ambiguity in both setting and time so that a too realistic description of either would not make the story unbelievable. We must keep in mind that Poe was writing in the Romantic period and that Realism would not come until the end of the century, despite the fact that he and other authors, Melville for example, took the first steps toward writing more realistic stories. As Carringer has stated, "the Poe protagonist is conspicuously within something [ . . . ] the principal activity takes place within a single room, and within a series of rooms in two others [ . . . ] Most key moments of action in Poe conspicuously involve severely restrictive enclosures". There is no doubt that Poe is largely indebted to Gothic fiction, as J. Gerald Kennedy. Among Poe 's locations, the house stands as the most important. It is not merely the place people inhabit. There is a clear relationship between the house and the narrators ' minds. This has been explained in terms of Freudian and Jungian theories (Bonaparte, Wilbur, and Knapp). The house is a symbol of the mind. As such, it may be understandable that the rooms may symbolize the brain 's different areas and functions. Within the house, the library has particular importance. The library, so critical in Poe 's fantastic fiction, represents the imaginative function of the human mind. In "Berenice," a story pervaded by the dreamy atmosphere of unreality and imagination, the narrator spends a large part of his life in the library, as he admits. Roderick Usher, the protagonist in "The Fall of the House of Usher," owns a library with a large number of books of fiction. He has not been in the open air for a long time, implying that his life experience is almost exclusively fed by such a room. These two are basically melancholic characters. Others, such as those in "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," do not mention the library. Instead of an imagination stimulated by a room full of books, their madness is provoked by a cat and an old man 's eye. In these two cases, the fantastic does not come from fancy as it was understood during the Romantic period. This poses the question of the power of imagination regarding fantastic fiction. Poe seems to be theorizing and practicing the limits of imagination. His insistence on some rational cause to explain the fantastic seems to indicate that he no longer believes in supernatural theories of the fantastic. At the same time his use of enclosed locations as the appropriate setting for the fantastic seems to point toward a psychological explanation, which is reinforced by the manic character of his narratives. There are other stories, such as "Ms. Found in a Bottle" and "A Descent into the Maelstrom," located aboard ships at sea. Curiously enough, these stories do not have a psychological explanation for the fantastic. Instead, they are models of mastery in the creation of fantastic short fiction through skilled writing. However, they are distanced from Poe 's other stories, since they do not propose a psychological cause to the fantastic. This is quite interesting, as "Ms. Found in a Bottle" was written in a very early stage of his career, probably when he was still hesitant to write about the fantastic. Poe did not, however, leave the psychological totally aside in the story; the narrator mentions opium: "We had also on board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium". "A Descent into the Maelstrom" is another example of Poe 's interest in science as the source of the fantastic. It was also written at an early stage in his career. In the story, there is no hint of a psychological cause. It is in fact a sort of scientific riddle that makes the fantastic function. The new fantastic, that is the fantastic as practiced by Poe, needed a narrator whose focus was tightly centered on a single event or character. The tight focus was thought of as a means to achieve the unity of effect that is characteristic of the modern short story. Poe examined the ratiocinative method in mystery and science fiction, which simply parallels the psychological aspects of fantastic stories since they all come from the same poetics of the story. Naturally, this implies that Poe had in mind the same ideas for his stories, no matter how they fell into one category or another.

Genres Poe 's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism, which Poe strongly disliked. He referred to followers of the movement as "Frog-Pondians" after the pond on Boston Common and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run mad," lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity 's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism 's sake." Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them." Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity. "Metzengerstein", the first story that Poe is known to have published, and his first foray into horror, was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre. Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax". Poe wrote much of his work using themes aimed specifically at mass-market tastes. To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy.

Major Themes
Death
A large portion of Poe 's fiction includes musings on the nature of death and on questions about the afterlife. In poems such as "Eldorado," the protagonist is only able to reach his life 's goal in death, having spent his life in endless seeking, and in other works, such as "The City in the Sea," "The Bells," and "The Conqueror Worm," death is a foregone conclusion as the end of a decaying process that started long before. Poe does not necessarily come to the same conclusion about death in each poem, particularly in the cases of "Lenore" and "The Raven," two poems that share a deceased female 's name but that take a very different approach to the subject of the afterlife. Whereas Guy de Vere of "Lenore" is defiant and hopeful in his mourning because he believes that he will again see Lenore in Heaven, the unnamed narrator of "The Raven" becomes increasingly agitated and despairing as he begins to believe the raven in that he will "nevermore" see Lenore.

Love A common motif within Poe 's oeuvre is that of a woman who has died at the height of her youth and beauty, leaving a bereft lover behind to mourn. In many cases, parallels can be drawn between the female in question and Poe 's sickly and prematurely deceased wife Virginia Clemm, as Poe often depicts the female as child-like or naive, details that recall Virginia 's young age at the time of marriage. For Poe, the strongest and most lasting love generally belonged to the young and innocent heroines of "Tamerlane" and "Annabel Lee," an attitude in line with that of many other contemporary writers of the Romantic era, who regarded childhood as the purest state of man. "To Helen" also emphasizes the nurturing role of a loving woman. After the death of the woman, however, the reaction of many of Poe 's protagonists is to remain emotionally dependent upon the dead women to the point of obsession. For example, the narrator of "Ulalume" wanders absentmindedly through the woods but is drawn irresistibly to her tomb, and the narrator of "Annabel Lee" sleeps every night next to her grave by the sea, lending macabre undertones to what appears at first to be faithful love.

Impermanence and uncertainty "A Dream within a Dream" deals most specifically with the troubling idea that reality is impermanent and nothing more than a dream, as the narrator first parts from his lover and then struggles with his inability to grasp the nature of an evanescent truth. However, a number of other poems touch upon the inevitability of the end, as in "The Conqueror Worm," one of Poe 's least optimistic poems, which asserts that all men are influenced by invisible forces until their unavoidable and tragically gruesome deaths. In many cases, the protagonists of Poe 's works worry because they see the impermanence of their state of being but are unable to make predictions about the unknown. In particular, "The Raven" emphasizes the quandary of the unknowable by juxtaposing the questioning narrator and the apparently all-knowing but also non-sentient raven 's denial of a possible future.

The subconscious self In his short works, Poe often plays upon the idea of a double, where the narrator has a doppelganger that represents his subconscious or his primal instincts. In some cases, as in "Ulalume," the double acts as the manifestation of instinctive wisdom, and here the narrator 's Psyche tries unsuccessfully to guide him away from the path to Ulalume 's tomb because she knows that he will encounter grief and seeks to protect him. In other situations, as in "The Raven," the narrator encounters a double that embodies his deepest fears, which in turn eventually overpower his conscious, rational self. Although the narrator of "The Raven" initially ignores the message of the intruding bird, he concludes the poem by interpreting its word "nevermore" as the denial of all his hopes; he has projected his soul into the body of the bird. In both cases, the poetic separation of the two halves creates a dramatic dialogue that highlights the narrator 's inner struggle.

Nature As a writer, Poe was part of the American Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century, when authors sought to return to nature in order to achieve a purer, less sinful state, away from the negative influences of society. As a result, Poe often associates nature with good, as in the case of "Tamerlane," where Tamerlane and his childhood friend find love and happiness in nature until he leaves for the company of other men and falls prey to pride and ambition. The poet of "Sonnet - To Science" also laments the encroaching of man into nature as he "drive[s] the Hamadryad from the wood" and consequently loses something of his soul. Many of Poe 's protagonists wander in nature and as a result discover something about their innermost thoughts -- as is the case with the narrator of "Ulalume," who wanders through a wood and unconsciously directs himself to the location of his dead beloved 's tomb. What is more, Poe often views cities negatively: "The City in the Sea" eventually sinks into hell after wasting away under the influence of a personified Death.

The human imagination Poe addresses the capabilities of the human mind most directly in "Sonnet - To Science," where the narrator poet laments that the dulling influence of modern science has restricted the power of the imagination. Nevertheless, he holds to the aesthetic ideals of human creativity and refers to a number of mythological characters in his claim that the ability to imagine lies at the center of humanity 's identity. On the other hand, other poems deal with the imagination in a somewhat different manner, showing the dangers of the imagination when not tempered by a sense of reality. The narrator of "The Raven" exemplifies this behavior. Although he at first tries to explain the potentially unearthly phenomenon of the raven through rational measures, he eventually forgets his rational mind in his sorrow and despair and comes to treat the raven as a sentient and therefore supernatural messenger.

Hope and despair By placing his characters in situations of regret and loss, Poe explores the spectrum of human emotion between hope and despair throughout his writing. On the one hand, poems such as "The Conqueror Worm" and "The Raven" primarily promote despair. In the latter work, the narrator 's words become increasingly agitated, and he shrieks futilely at the raven. This state of being contrasts heavily with the more hopeful ending of "Eldorado," where the "pilgrim shadow" tells the aging knight that he must venture boldly into the Valley of the Shadow to achieve his goal and thus offers the knight a potential end to his life-long quest. Nevertheless, even this hint of hope has dark undertones since it suggests that the knight will be doomed to search for the remainder of his life and must willingly ride into death to fulfill his quest.

Edgar Allan Poe 's Style of Writing

Henry James once asserted, in reference to Poe, that “[to] take him with more than a certain degree of seriousness is to lack seriousness oneself” (Cain, p. 786). Perhaps James found Poe’s seemingly chimerical subject matter to be trivial; maybe, he viewed the gothic genre as pulp fiction, meant to be experienced merely as a form of entertainment. Had he delved further into Poe’s writing, though, he would have discovered that it possesses indubitable literary merit and serves as an encouraging example for aspiring writers. That being said, Poe should have, in fact, been taken seriously, as his writing demonstrates stylistic brilliance in the form of varying vocabulary, remarkable repetition, and instrumental imagery.

The Role of Intricate Vocabulary Through his use of unique vocabulary, Poe engages readers, forcing them to devote their attention to his writing and be mindful of his message. He begins the “Fall of the House of Usher,” for example, with a description of the house, which is adorned with “phantasmagoric armorial trophies” (Poe, p. 796). The existence of the word “phantasmagoric,” which is not commonly-used, requires that readers pause to contemplate the contextual implications of such a term. Therefore, they are required to be cognizant of all the elements of the story, in addition to simply breezing through to comprehend its plot. Powerful terminology seen in “The Purloined Letter” also requires that readers interpret the tale beyond its superficial happenings. When explaining the method by which he detects the intelligence level of an opponent, Dupin describes the typical schoolboy as being full of “spurious profundity” (Poe, p. 823). Poe could have chosen to employ a more simplistic term, such as “fake,” in place of “spurious;” however, his decision to utilize the latter challenges readers to engage in deliberation regarding the story’s deeper meaning. By requiring that readers actually contemplate the meaning of both his intricate vocabulary and its relationship to the more profound implications of the story-line, Poe ensures that they will dedicate their complete attention to his writing and grow intellectually.

Repetition and its Effect on Stories ' Themes In addition to vocabulary, Poe’s use of repetition ensures that readers will contemplate the deeper meaning of his writing and understand which concepts are important in his stories. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator, after claiming that he is not insane, goes on to describe “how stealthily, stealthily” (Poe, p. 811) he proceeds when entering the chamber of the elderly man and illuminating the room with the lantern. The repetition of “stealthily” demonstrates just how sneaky and narrator is, suggesting that he is, in fact, insane. Repetition is seen again in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” where Poe begins with a description of the weather when he approaches the House of Usher, deeming it to be a night in which the “clouds [hang] oppressively low in the heavens” (Poe, p. 793). He continues forward, informing readers that he is there to visit a friend who is inflicted by “a mental disorder which oppressed him” (Poe, p. 795). The repetition of the word “oppress” communicates to readers just how depressing and burdensome the situation is. Repetition, then, serves to convey the message that certain themes are vital to the story’s development. Clearly, the choice to employ the stylistic technique of repetition contributes to readers’ understanding of Poe’s work.

The Impact of Poe 's Imagery Strengthening readers’ comprehension of his writing is also a key function of the imagery Poe uses. As he begins his account of his reunion with Roderick Usher in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe describes Roderick’s physical features, which include lips that are “somewhat thin and very pallid,” hair that contains “more than web-like softness,” and a face characterized by a “finely moulded chin” (Poe, p. 797). By including this imagery, readers can create a mental image of Roderick, allowing them to visualize and interpret his aesthetic qualities as they relate to the story. Through this visualization, readers are also able to place themselves in the story, as if they are familiar with Roderick, and almost experience its events as they unfold. The imagery in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is perhaps even more functional than the description of Roderick Usher. As the narrator approaches the elderly man on the night of the murder, he describes the man’s seemingly threatening eye, which is “a dull blue, with a hideous veil” (Poe, p. 811). Again, readers are able to visualize the eye and feel the apprehension that the narrator must feel as he views the eye and proceeds with his murderous plan. After the murder, when being questioned by the police, the narrator tells us that he becomes so nervous that he “[grows] very pale” and “[gasps] for breath” (Poe, p. 813). This imagery provides such an effective description of the scene, that readers are able to understand the agony through which the narrator suffers as he deals with the prospect of being caught by the police. Readers can almost feel the racing heartbeat and the sweat dripping from the narrator’s pores as he agitatedly aims to make one last attempt to conceal the murder. Without an effective description, the story may have seemed dull and destitute, but because Poe uses such graphic, eloquent imagery, readers are included in the story, as if they are onlookers in the stadium at an athletic event. Imagery in Poe’s writing clearly involves readers in the story, and his use of repetition and complex vocabulary ensures that readers understand his themes and implications. By including repetition in his works, Poe places emphasis on certain concepts, informing readers that they are vital to the story’s development. Complex vocabulary serves a similar purpose, highlighting certain themes and requiring that readers devote their attention to them. The inclusion of unique vocabulary also challenges readers to deliberate, instead of simply reading for pleasure. That being said, any author who requires readers to think should be regarded with seriousness.

Analysis of Poe’s “Black cat”

"The Black Cat" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe 's "The Tell-Tale Heart". In both, a murderer carefully conceals his crime and believes himself unassailable, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself, impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt.

Type of plot: Psychological

Type of Work: Short story in the horror genre that focuses on the psyche of the narrator. Poe was one of the developers of the short story as a literary genre. He defined a short story as narrative proses work that: (1) is short enough to be read in one sitting,
(2) takes place in one locale on a single day, (or even in a few hours),
(3) centers on a single line of action,
(4) maintains a single mood. Every word or phrase should contribute to the theme and the mood.

Time of Work: The mid-nineteenth century

Setting: An unnamed American city
The story opens in the cell of a prisoner the day before he is to be executed by hanging. After introducing himself to readers as a man who underwent a horrifying experience, the prisoner writes down the details of this experience, which led to his imprisonment and scheduled execution. The events in his tale are set at his home and in a tavern. Although these events take place over several years, the recounting of these events in writing takes place on a single day in the narrator 's prison cell.

Characters: The narrator, His wife, Pluto, A second black cat, policemen, servant.
The Narrator, a prisoner scheduled for execution. His loathing of a cat he once loved leads to his commission of a capital crime. 1. The Narrator 's Wife, a woman of agreeable disposition who likes animals and obtains many pets for her husband. 2. First Black Cat, a cat named Pluto that loves the narrator but irritates him when it follows him everywhere. 3. Second Black Cat, a cat that resembles the first black cat and may be a reincarnation of the latter–or so the narrator may think. 4. Policemen, officers who investigate the happenings at the home of the narrator. 5. Servant, Person working in the narrator 's household.

Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction

Themes: 1. Perversity A human being has a perverse, wicked side that can goad him into committing evil deeds. The narrator says it was this inner demon that brought about his downfall. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong 's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. 2. Alcohol abuse
Heavy drinking can bring out the worst in a human being. To be sure, alcohol abuse alone did not cause the narrator 's violent behavior. But, as he readily acknowledges, it certainly put him in a foul mood. 3. Vengeance
Evil deeds invite vengeance. Pluto gets even, the narrator indicates, by causing the fire that burnt down the narrator 's house. And, if the second cat is indeed Pluto reincarnated, Pluto sweetens his revenge by alerting police with his crying behind the wall hiding the corpse of the narrator 's wife. 4. The power of suggestion
A weak, unbalanced human psyche may be highly vulnerable to the power of suggestion. Consider that the narrator 's wife had suggested, apparently in jest, that Pluto was more than a harmless black cat.
In speaking of his [the cat 's] intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point -- and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered. In fact, the apparently deranged narrator may well have taken his wife 's comments seriously.

Plot The story is presented as a first-person narrative using an unreliable narrator. The narrator tells us that from an early age he has loved animals. He and his wife have many pets, including a large black cat named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. One night, after coming home intoxicated, he believes the cat is avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in a fit of rage, he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife from his pocket, and deliberately gouges out the cat 's eye. From that moment onward, the cat flees in terror at his master 's approach. At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty. "But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS." He takes the cat out in the garden one morning and hangs it from a tree, where it dies. That very night, his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the narrator, his wife and their servant to flee. The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the figure of a gigantic cat, hanging by its neck from a rope. At first, this image terrifies the narrator, but gradually he determines a logical explanation for it, that someone outside had thrown the dead cat into the bedroom to wake him up during the fire, and begins to miss Pluto. Some time later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern. It is the same size and color as the original and is even missing an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the animal 's chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to loathe, even fear the creature. After a time, the white patch of fur begins to take shape and, to the narrator, forms the shape of the gallows. Then, one day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new home, the cat gets under its master 's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs. In a fury, the man grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat but is stopped by his wife. Enraged, he kills her with the axe instead. To conceal her body he removes bricks from a protrusion in the wall, places her body there, and repairs the hole. When the police came to investigate, they find nothing and the narrator goes free. The cat, which he intended to kill as well, has gone missing. On the last day of the investigation, the narrator accompanies the police into the cellar. There, completely confident in his own safety, the narrator comments on the sturdiness of the building and raps upon the wall he had built around his wife 's body. A wailing sound fills the room. The alarmed police tear down the wall and find the wife 's corpse, and on her head, to the horror of the narrator, is the screeching black cat. As he words it: "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!"

Conclusion Most people recognize Poe by his famous story “Black cat” ". Others may have read one of his more popular dark and creepy tales like, "The Fall of the House of Usher" or "The Tell-tale Heart". Also I want to say that Poe wrote quite a few gothic stories about murder, revenge, torture, the plague, being buried alive, and insanity. His famous fantastic stories are written in a very interesting form. Poe used in his fantastic stories such kind of themes like a death, love, nature, human imagination and etc. Poe 's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. The uniqueness of Allan Edgar Poe is psychological problem in his works which make readers read and read his works in one sitting.

References: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe 2. Allen, Michael. Poe and the British Magazine Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. 3. Hoffmann, Gerhard. "Edgar Allan Poe and German Literature." (downloaded from http://books.google.kz) 4. Poe, Edgar A. Collected Works. 3 vols. Ed. Thomas O. Mabbott. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969 (downloaded from http://books.google.kz) 5. http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/poe/poe_ind.html 6. http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php 7. Cain, W. (2004). American Literature. Penguin Academics: New York.

References: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe 2. Allen, Michael. Poe and the British Magazine Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. 3. Hoffmann, Gerhard. "Edgar Allan Poe and German Literature." (downloaded from http://books.google.kz) 4. Poe, Edgar A. Collected Works. 3 vols. Ed. Thomas O. Mabbott. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969 (downloaded from http://books.google.kz) 5. http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/poe/poe_ind.html 6. http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php 7. Cain, W. (2004). American Literature. Penguin Academics: New York.