English research paper

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.-“Edgar Allan Poe”. What a quote from one of the greatest writers of all time. Words have no power to impress the mind without the horror of the world that we live in. people take their life for granted and everything they have for granted as well. It shouldn’t be like that. Although Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens contrast interpretation, style, and characters they do compare in plot, theme, and setting. I believe that Poe is the better writer than Dickens. One contrast between the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens is style. Nicholas Nickleby is an example of style from the author’s works. Nicholas Nickleby at that time was considered to be the funniest novel in the English language. I actually did read the summary for this book and to me it seems like a funny novel to read. In Dickens’s time it was just as funny as some of our modern day books if not funnier than most books. Dickens style helped reach the level of success that is held by his name.
Charles Dickens linguistic creativity differs from Poe's works. Dombey and son one of Dickens more creative works highlight this. Dickens was a very smart man who knew how to incorporate his life and surroundings into his short stories. Dombey and Son is Dickens greatest triumph in the sentimentalist tradition. His creativity helped him get there. Poe was as creative as Dickens was. Poe’s stories reined over the same topics. Death and love. Dickens was different.
Poe did have the upper hand in one category. Gothic Fiction. Poe is considered to be the founder of gothic fiction. Throughout the works of Poe he includes the pervasive theme of death and decay. It is almost a staple in gothic fiction, the theme of presence of madness, insanity, other internal causes, the supernatural in all of its fans, and haunted creepy locations. Almost all if not all of Poe's stories posses gothic qualities. pg. 2
Dickens and Poe include some interesting characters that differ in their own way. Grip one of the characters in the story of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe was a loquacious Raven that Dickens admired in one of his stories. In Barnaby Rudge a local idiot wonders in and out of the story with his pet raven Grip. It is said that Dickens wanted to use a parrot instead of a Raven in his story but decided to go with the Raven.
In the story “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens Pip the main character is a little boy living with his older sister and her husband who is a blacksmith. Pip is a poor orphan who lives a troubled life until he comes into good wealth and goes off to England to become a gentleman. Pip falls in love with Mrs. Havishams adopted daughter who was raised to break men’s hearts in. needless to say Pip lives a very confusing traumatic life but is an outstanding character and plays an important role in Dickens novel.
In the story of Barnaby Rudge there is a young boy named Barnaby Rudge who is considered to be the local idiot who owns a pet raven named Grip. In the story murder is involved with a character named Steward. The suspected murderer was said to be the gardener. His motives for killing Steward were unknown. All of Dickens books have characters from people in his life and stories that reflect his past. Poe’s characters are often tortured by guilt.
One comparison between the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens is the plot. The tell tale heart is one example where both writers have something in common. Revenge and death. These two highlight almost all of Dickens and Poe’s works. The Tell Tale Heart is a story about a man who seeks revenge on his childhood bully but in the end ends up killing himself. The Cask of Amontillado also portrays revenge and death. pg. 3
Both writers also love to write stories about love. A Tale of Two Cities is a story about love, imprisonment and death. We can’t forget about Great Expectations where Pip falls in love with Estella. Pip was crazy for Estella but Estella was raised to break men’s hearts. Poe pretty much is summarizing his life and feelings towards the love losses that occurred to him in his life.
Probably the biggest comparison between the two writers is their way about writing about death. In the black cat, Pluto (the cat) is murdered by a drunk man. I don’t know how someone can just write about death. In David Copperfield the death of David’s mother ends his schooling at creakles institutional. But wait there’s more, in the haunted man, a chemist named Bedlaw is an isolated scholar beset by his memories of the death of his sister and betrayal his best friend. As I started earlier Barnaby Rudge and the Masque of the Red Death also portrayed death. If anything these writers best works involved death. Another area where Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens do compare in is theme. Byronic Romanticism is an example of this. The influence of Byronic Romanticism evident in Poe is also apparent in the works of Wuthering Heights. Poe and dickens both were able to use this very well in writing a good amount of stories.
Fate is also a big part in the works of Dickens and Poe. In the Masque of the Red Death a plague is going through town within 30 minutes a person would die of the plague. The king tried to avoid the plague by staying in his castle until the plague cleared up or went away. But Fate had the advantage as it always does and King Prospero caught the plague and eventually died of it. In the Cask of Amontillado fate would strike as pay back when someone is killed for crossing his friend who told him not to cross him. Long story short fate caught up to him. pg. 4
Poe and Dickens love to write about people getting murdered. The black cat a story about a cat who is murdered by a drunk man. In Great Expectations Pip’s sister is killed. The Tell tale Heart a story about a plan to kill an old man but in the end the man who tried to kill the old man ended up killing himself. In Barnaby Rudge, Steward gets killed by the Gardner. A Trial of Murder a tale of supernatural retribution with the murdered mans spirit returning to ensure his killers execution. I can go on and on with this. These writers just have a fancy way for writing death stories. Poe has crafted a tale about the perfect crime whose criminal goes unpunished and about a crime that haunts a murderer. This is their bread and butter. Death.
While Poe and dickens compared in plot and theme they also did compare in setting. Their dark and gloomy atmosphere really helped shape how the story was going to go. Poe incorporated a gloomy atmosphere and melodrama into his works because he read gothic stories as a child. So pretty much that’s where Poe got that idea from. In Barnaby Rudge he would set the scene at the Village of Chugwell an evening of foul weather. In the Pit and the Pendulum the setting is dark, dreary, and scary.
Poe is considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre. Both Poe and Dickens have written many of short detectives or short mysterious novels which also helped boost their writing. One story tells of a talking Raven’s mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man’s slow fall into madness. The mystery of Edwin Drood is about repression and rebellion breaking out.

pg. 5
The melancholy setting that both writers have created really makes reading their stories that much more interesting. Dickens tells about the cold wet shelter less midnight streets of London and the foul drowsy dens. The Tell Tale Hearts setting makes it hard for me to read but it adds so much meaning to it. In the Raven, Poe establishes an atmosphere/ tone of darkness, melancholy, suspense, fear, and anxiety. The settings in their writings made their writing powerful and to me really set the standard for their type of writing. But all in all Poe definitely was the better writer hands down. Best of all time. Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.-“Edgar Allan Poe”. In conclusion I believe that Edgar Allan Poe is a better writer than Charles Dickens and in my opinion the best writer of all time. I just feel that Poe was more motivated to write than Dickens was. Poe went through so much in his life and his writings reflect that. Nobody to this day will ever surpass the great writing of Edgar Allan Poe. I truly do feel bad that Poe had to go through so much death in his life but that motivated him to write his vivid short stories. Although Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens contrast interpretation, style, and characters they do compare in plot, theme, and setting. Poe to me is the best write that ever lived.

Compare and contrast Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens

Although Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens contrast interpretation, style, and characters, they do compare in plot theme and setting.
I. Interpretation
II. Style
A. Humor
1. Nicholas Nickelby
2. Funniest novel in the English language
B. Linguistic Creativity
1. Angel of the odd
2. Men who drink too much
C. Gothic
1. Best known fiction
2. Dark romanticism genre
III. Theme
A. Romanticism
1. Byronic Romanticism
2. Wuthering heights
B. Fate
1. Cask of Amontillado
2. Masque of the Red Death
C. Murder
1. Pips sister
2. Barnaby Rudge’s sister
IV. Plot
A. Revenge
1. Tell tale heart
2. Cask of Amontillado
B. Love
1. Great Expectations
2. Tale of two cities
C. Death
1. The black cat
2. David Copperfield
V. Characters
A. The raven
1. Male
2. Bird
B. Pip
1. Poor
2. Boy
C. Barnaby Rudge
1. Steward
2. Gardner
VI. Setting
A. Gloomy
1. Gothic novels
2. Pit and pendulum
B. Mysterious
1. Detective fiction
2. Considered the inventor of it
C. Melancholy
1. The Raven
2. Tell Tale Heart

Works cited
"Edgar Allan Poe." EXPLORING Short Stories. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 15 May 2014.

"Edgar Allan Poe." American Eras. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Student Resources in Context. Web. 15 May 2014.

"Poe, Edgar Allan." Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia. William Rose Benet. 3rd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. 773AA. General OneFile. Web. 21 Jan 2014.

"Edgar Allen Poe Museum." Gale Student Resources in Context. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Student
Resources in Context. Web. 21 Jan 2014.

"David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page." Gale Student Resources in Context. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Student Resources in Context. Web. 21 Jan 2014.

"Charles Dickens." EXPLORING Novels. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. Jan 21 2014.

Diedrick, James. "Charles Dickens." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 15 May 2014.

"Dickens, Charles." Crime and Punishment in America Reference Library. Ed. Richard C. Hanes. Detroit: UXL, 2005. 61-68. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 15 May 2014.