The Bell By Edgar Allan Poe Analysis Essay

The Bell, by Edgar Allan Poe, is a piece of gothic literature that explores life and death in the form of different types of bells. The poem has no plot, yet throws the reader through a series of emotions from elation to misery. The poem starts with silver sleigh bells, creating a happy feeling and illustrating the gaiety of childhood and the wonder of life. The poem moves to the sounds of wedding bells, symbolizing the hopeful beginning at the start of adulthood. Afterward, alarm bells start ringing, embodying the fear of aging. Finally, iron bells sound off personifying the fear of death who is soon to come. Poe creates the idea, no matter how hopeful life is, death will alway win. To create this convincing perception Poe uses various types of rhetoric.
In the first stanza, the word rapture, which means joy, is used. Along with tintinnabulation, delight and musically. These words all have positive connotations and sounds, which adds to the cheerful tone of the first stanza. In the third and fourth stanza, the descriptive words change. The words become progressively darker. This tone change is shown in words such as expostulation and melancholy. The change in tone strengthens the gothic aspect of the piece, by adding horror and some terror while showing the reader life does not get better with age. Various other poetic devices are also employed in The Bell. Personification helps show the shift in tone as well. In stanza two the bells “ring out their delight” but in stanza three the bells “they can only shriek, shriek”. Repetition is also prominent in the poem. This repetition imitates the sound of the bells and the feeling in the specific stanza. In stanza one, the bells “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle” this creates an upbeat hopeful happy noise. In stanza four the bells make a “tolling, tolling, tolling” noise, helping illustrate a low grumbly noise adding once again to the shift in