Edgar Allen Poe http://www.bookstove.com/tags/Edgar Allen Poe New posts about Edgar Allen Poe On Edgar Allen Poe's "ms. Found in a Bottle" http://www.bookstove.com/Poetry/On-Edgar-Allen-Poes-ms-Found-in-a-Bottle.347719     In “MS. Found in a Bottle,” by Edgar Allan Poe, an unnamed narrator writes his tale; he sails on a ship that gets hit by a hurricane, throwing all but him and a Swede overboard. For five days they endure the hurricane until the sun disappears and “eternal night” surrounds the two. Another ship, glowing red, appears, and a huge wave sweeps away the Swede and tosses the narrator on board, where an aged and feeble crew seems unable to see or hear him. With them he stays until the ship meets a whirlpool and sinks into the darkness, presumably ending the narrator’s life. Throughout the story, the narrator states and restates his clinical mind’s lack of imagination. Poe underlines this levelheadedness to give the reader confidence in the words of the narrator. This enables Poe to incorporate supernatural images subtly. The purposeful deaths of the crew and unwilling death of a confused narrator then catch the reader off guard. A matter-of-fact portrayal and gradual incorporation of the bizarre brings an eerie realism to the narrator’s hellish end.
    “MS. Found in a Bottle” opens with the narrater explaining that he has no sense of imagination, no appreciation for superstition, logic overwhelming fantasy. “Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this age --I mean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible of such reference, to the principles of that science. Upon the whole, no person could be less liable than myself to be led away from the severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition.” Eloquence and imagination mean nothing to this man but a waste of time. Well-off by birth yet emotionally and physically distant from his family and from his country, he feels no particular attachment for these or anything else. His family’s great wealth afforded him, however, a good education. Therefore, logic, rather than love, remains the dominating force behind all of the narrator’s actions.
    His mind is entirely oriented to the analytical. Constantly he thinks and speaks scientifically. “...we are whirling dizzily, in immense concentric circles, round and round the borders of a gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is lost in the darkness and the distance.” Even while about to die, the narrator speaks with superiority. Poe’s success in creating a startling tale stem from his unequaled aptitude at assisting the reader in suspension of disbelief. Prefacing the story with such descriptions does just this; bringing an air of technicality through to the end adds a level of plausibility to the story.
    Eeriness begins with a depiction of abnormalities in the sky. “... I observed a very singular, isolated cloud, to the N.W. It... spread all at once to the eastward and westward, girting in the horizon with a narrow strip of vapor, and looking like a long line of low beach. My notice was soon afterwards attracted by the dusky-red appearance of the moon, and the peculiar character of the sea.” Learning that this threat comes from a hurricane exemplifies the narrator’s pragmatism in fearing only what is logically worthy of fear.  Such descriptions tie the other-worldly hell the narrator eventually encounters to reality. The creepy yet scientific images become increasingly phantasmagoric, and Poe seamlessly glides the reader from a world of order into an universe of darkness and ghouls; “... their eyes have an eager and uneasy meaning; and when their fingers fall athwart my path in the wild glare of the battle-lanterns, I feel as I have never felt before... I have been all my life a dealer in antiquities... until my very soul has become a ruin.” As the story goes on, an inability to comprehend his surroundings pulls the narrator into another side of himself, and he brings the reader with him to a fearful but quiet acceptance. Whether it is to death or to an eternity of silence, never being noticed by these creatures with muted voices, doom is certain.
    Practical and frigid, the narrator is accustomed to a mundane world of rules. The icy, uninhabited southern pole represents an escape. He falls in line with the frail, tentative, crew, waiting anxiously for the ruin he senses coming upon them, or rather the ruin they are speeding to find. “It is evident that we are hurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge --some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction.” Although he fails to understand where or why the ship is going, he knows “destruction” is the outcome. However, he feels neither fearful nor distressed. “The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous step; but there is upon their countenances an expression more of the eagerness of hope than of the apathy of despair.” Mirroring the crew, he anticipates the end with exhilaration. When the ice disappears and the ship begins to spin, falling into darkness, the ocean spirals down into death, into nothingness. He is shaken only slightly, even in the last words he writes, and his and and the crew’s calmness about their eminent doom displays a grotesque masochism, an unnervingly enticing suicidal nature.
    Poe’s use of language and character gently persuades the reader, turning his daunting abyss from surreal into conceivable. The transition from normality to another world is gradual and methodic, creating a realistic ending that leaves the reader in shock. “But little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny --the circles rapidly grow small --we are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool --and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and thundering of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering, oh God! and --going down.” After such rational and systematic language throughout the story, Poe’s sudden transition from the calm of attempting to explain the strange occurrences into frenzied ranting is startling. The reader is left with the hauntingly realistic image of a hell on earth.

]]> Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:30:06 PST The Raven http://www.bookstove.com/Poetry/The-Raven.319653 “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe is a narrative poem about a man's depression for his lost love. The main conflict centers around the fact that the narrator seems to be struggling with the raven, but in reality he is struggling with himself over the loss of his love. In a bleak December, the narrator hears a knock a at his chamber door, when he goes to investigate, he finds no one is there.

He assumes it is his lost love Lenore. Once again, he hears a tapping, this time coming from the window and when he looks he sees a raven. The man finds humor in the raven and is able to communicate with the raven. All the raven can say is “nevermore”. When the man asks if his love has gone to heaven and if he will ever see her again, the raven replies “nevermore”. The man loses himself to his depression, and his spirit is lifted forever.

]]> Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:19:39 PST The Mask of the Red Death http://www.bookstove.com/Classics/The-Mask-of-the-Red-Death.34103 In “Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allen Poe creates a tone of horror through allusion, imagery and diction. Poe's allusions demonstrate the tone of horror. Poe relates his main character, Prince Prospero, to a Shakespearean play. The word “Prospero” literally means prosperous, but in “Masque of the Red Death” even a prosperous prince dies. And if a prince dies to the Red Death what chance do we or the guests have.

In a way the prince is leading the guests to their deaths much like the dance of death where a skeleton lead people to their grave. Another way Poe employs allusions is the way the spectra image out-Heroded Herod, and that “he had come like a thief in the night (p.18)”.

Herod, a king, killed a tremendous number of innocent babies in hope of killing Jesus. The fact this spectra had out-Heroded Herod paints a grotesque and fearful image in one's mind. Poe's allusions tell a great deal of the devastation of the events. Poe also indicates that the masqueraders were unprepared for this event, he alludes the Red Death to the coming of Jesus in Egypt. Allusions influence our thoughts just as much as words do, and Poe makes a great effort to allude the story in order to make great.

In addition to allusions, Poe also uses imagery to strengthen the tone of terror. An example of Poe's imagery is the blood-tinted panes of the seventh room. Blood has always portrayed death, and blood was the Red Death's Avatar. Ironically, what Prince Prospero was trying to escape sat at the window pane of the black chamber. Combining the black decorated room and blood-red panes, the colors form the hue of evil. Though blood fills one with dread, the clock of ebony in the back of the black chamber engulfs one in complete fright. Ebony, a very dark eerie brown, strikes ghastly thoughts into the masked guests' hearts, and the clock represents the guest's time to live sluggishly ticking away.

Even “the giddiest grew pale (p.15)”, and yielded to the clock's warning of the omnipresent death. The reader slowly becomes aware of the control of time on our life. The imagery in this short story constructs layers and layers of horrific images which totally absorbs the reader into the story itself.

However, Poe's uncanny ability to tap into the untold dreads with diction has made this story haunting. Poe utilizes the word pestilence in place of disease. A pestilence is a gory incurable disease, but “no pestilence had ever been so fatal (p.13)” as the one in “Masque of the Red Death”. This pestilence brutally murdered human life as the scarlet blood oozed out of every pore, shattered all life in half an hour. The “assembly of phantasms (p.17)” vividly described the guests, but the phrase does not depict what the guests are but as more as what they will become. The Red Death will ravage them for an eternity for “Death hold illimitable dominion over all (p.18)”. Poe's dictions foreshadow what will come to pass, and by doing this Poe makes the reader think about what will happen next.

Combining all the elements of other-worldly events, Poe weaves fantastic tales that captivates its reader, and never let's go. The “Masque of the Red Death” is not just a horror story. It tells of Poe's terrible past and his association with blood, and how he feels about death and its power.

]]> Sun, 20 May 2007 07:33:30 PST Literary Analysis of the Raven http://www.bookstove.com/Classics/Literary-Analysis-of-the-Raven.34165 “Quoth the Raven 'nevermore'” (Raven: 48). In “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe. The speaker is continually losing his mind as he morns the death of his lover, Lenore. Poe was able to maintain a melancholy feeling throughout his poem using the refrain “nevermore” and following some very strict, self-set, rules. Every stanza in the poem uses the same rhyme scheme, ABCBBB. He used many literary devices including alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia. His rhythm is also very structured and unwavering.

The rhyme scheme used by Poe in his poem “The Raven” is described as ABCBBB. Every stanza in “The Raven” follows this rhyme scheme to create a very structured poem. Poe also uses internal rhyme where two words in the third rhyme will rhyme with each other and with another word in the fourth line. In the second stanza the word morrow in line three rhymes with the word borrow also in line three and sorrow in line four. Poe also uses repetition to not only conform to his rhyme scheme, but to emphasize the word as well. “'Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee” (Raven: 81) is an example of Poe using repetition to rhyme. Poe used trochaic octameter for his poem. Poe used many other devices in his poem such as alliteration and consonance. “Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;” (Raven: 26) is an example of alliteration and consonance. Poe used alliteration to increase the effect of the line. “The silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” (Raven: 13) is an example of an onomatopoeia used by Poe in his poem.

The tone of “The Raven” is morbid and depressing. Poe used a man who had lost his lost Lenore to deepen the melancholy feeling, because losing a loved one is the grimmest subjects there is. Poe had a raven, an already grim animal, to repeat the word “nevermore” whenever the narrator would speak to it. One other way Poe increased the melancholy effect is the torture of the narrator. The answer the narrator received each time was already predetermined and both the reader and the narrator knew what the reply was going to be; therefore, continuously torturing the narrator.

Poe also used many similes, metaphors, and examples of personification. “Quoth the Raven 'Nevermore'” (Raven: 48) is an example of personification found in Poe's poem “The Raven”. Since birds cannot really talk, the raven was given a human characteristic of speech. “And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,” is an example of a metaphor used in “The Raven” by Poe to compare the raven's eyes to a demon's; therefore, comparing the raven to a demon. “That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.” (Raven: 56) is an example of a simile that Poe used to compare the raven's reply to the narrators state of grief.

Poe used many devices to produce the melancholy feeling found in his poem “The Raven” including alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia. The tone of the poem was created using depressing symbols, topics, and themes. Poe followed a very strict rhyme scheme throughout the entire poem. After looking through the poem and carefully examining how much work was put into it to make it so strict, we can conclude that the poem was carefully though through and produced by a literary genius to have pieced it all together so perfectly.

]]> Wed, 07 Mar 2007 08:01:24 PST