Analysis of Poe’s Short Stories
Reading Edgar Allan Poe’s short story - “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Tell- Tale Heart” and “The Oval Portrait” – is indeed very gripping and thrilling. With every sentence that one reads more interest and curiosity builds up to know what will happen next in the story. Each of these stories is about horror, death and killing, with a great element of suspense. The Gothic element therefore is very strong in all the three short stories.
Joanne Harris (Edgar Allan Poe, p.42) stated in The Telegraph that Poe is a master of horror and one of his strongholds is the detailed description that he gives in his stories. The vocabulary is so specific and descriptive that the readers can easily visualize the setting of the story and actually see a movie in their mind about the events taking place. For instance in “The Cask of Amontillado”, we can visualize Montresor and Fortunato going down the damp vaults covered with nitre, in “The Tell- Tale Heart” we can imagine the narrator killing the old man and in “The Oval Portrait” we can see the beautiful woman sitting straight while the painter makes her portrait. All the three stories move like a film in our minds.
The important gothic elements are that the setting is in an abandoned place, or an old building with trap doors, ruined sections, secret dark rooms, a mysterious atmosphere, a strange dream or sign, events or happenings which are inexplicable, characters experience high or frenzied emotions and often act hysterically. There is mention of sounds like crying, screaming and moaning. Very often we find a strong element of pathos in gothic literature in the form of female characters being pensive, deprived and left to suffer. Women in such stories are under the whims and fancies of their men due to which their suffering/misery multiplies. Even the lighting is dim in the settings, dark rooms and creepy silence and stimulated atmosphere are key features of the gothic. But what the writers use to create all of this is the appropriate vocabulary such as Poe writes in “The Cask of Amontillado” that “A wrong is redressed when retribution overtakes its redresser.” Then he describes the vaults as “insufferably damp”. When Poe describes the vault as a place where there are “piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs” it brings out the horrifying element in the story making the readers shiver when they imagine it. In gothic stories there is anger, hatred, haste, element of surprise, sorrow, fear, mystery, and despair. We find all of these gothic elements in the three stories of Poe we have studied.
Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado” and the unnamed narrator in “The Tell- Tale Heart” are characters who are overrun in their emotions by anger for the person they want to kill. Their feelings seem to be uncontrollable and both go into a frenzy of anger and hatred, so much so that it compels the readers to wonder if their sanity was in any way affected. And that is what the narrator in “The Tell- Tale Heart” keeps re-iterating that he is not mad, just nervous. The characters become intolerant of the people who they plan to remove from their lives. Montresor became intolerant of Fortunato in the story and the narrator in “The Tell- Tale Heart” could not stand the sight of the old man’s “evil eye”. Its unfathomable actually how one could kill someone who’s eye was not pleasant to the sight. In this respect as a reader one may consider the narrator quite insane and impulsive. Montresor also comes across as wild with his emotions, impetuous and extremely paranoid. This relates to the gothic element where characters experience and feel hyper and emotional extremes. Their actions are completely based on such a frenzy.
Montresor and the narrator of “The Tell- Tale Heart” both make a grave for their victims after killing them. Montresor being a mason/stone man makes Fortunato’s wall grave and in the other story the narrator dismembers the body of the old man and buries it under the wooden planks which shows the brutality of the murder and gives an immensely grotesque picture to the audience. Both the characters are so ruled over by their emotions and anger that they get down committing such gruesome murders in the stories.
In the third story “The Oval Portrait” also we see the painter overruled by his “fervid” passion of art so much so that his wife died out of neglect and care. In this respect he is different from Montresor and the narrator of “The Tell- Tale Heart” who actually aim and plan to kill. The painter never thought of killing his beautiful wife, but she died out of neglect. The decaying and abandoned chateau in the “The Oval Portrait” creates a perfect setting for the story. It is a dark and deserted place for a gothic story and cuts off the narrator from the outside world. We see the paradox between the fleeting nature of life and the intransience of the portrait. The young woman appears to be full of life and “glee” when she gets married, but loses her charm on her husband. She grew pale and weak sitting for her husband to draw her on canvas. Her husband, the painter was successful in making a replica of her on canvas, which looked amazingly beautiful and perfect. However, in the process the woman got tired of sitting there, and became weak. She lost her strength and brightness in her countenance which once attracted her husband. Here the painter’s beloved was killed or destroyed, and similarly in the other two stories also Montresor and the unnamed narrator destroyed their loved ones. Montresor did appreciate Fortunato and had some respect for him, and likewise the unnamed narrator did love the old man. This is common in Poe’s stories that the characters feel a conflict between their emotions of love and hate, and cause harm to their loved ones.
The way his painting is now decaying in the chateau, even the vaults in “The Cask of Amontillado” are decaying and there are ruins of the Montresor’s family. The“dark lantern” and the creaking hinges imply that it’s a very old house. All of these are a vital part of the gothic element.
The three characters of Poe, Montresor, the unnamed narrator and the painter, show unconscious struggles and emotional instability which seems to have affected their psyche. Poe reveals their state of mind as they seem to be psychotic and different from the way a normal sane person would act. They seem to be blinded by their feelings and act without thinking of the consequences. The painter is the most different of the trio as he didn’t plan to kill the young woman, but was blinded by his passion of art. Montresor and the unnamed narrator in fact planned and thought strategically how to carry out the murders. They were cautious and skillful in doing so. In “The Tell- Tale Heart” we read how proud the narrator feels for planning well - “how wisely I proceeded-- with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work!” He narrates what all he did so that no sound was made and no reason for suspicion was given to the old man. He seemed to have worked hard in making all his moves, and so did Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado”. But ironically, no matter how cautious the protagonist of “The Tell- Tale Heart” was in his moves, in the end he was extremely disturbed by the sound of heartbeat, which was probably his own. It is not certain whether the sound was some supernatural one, a real sound of his heart beat or an imaginary sound. He was pretending to be very calm and confident, but actually he was terribly scared and stressed in front of the policemen.
Montresor carried a trowel under his clothes for making the wall. He also took wine in order to intoxicate Fortunato. To win his trust he kept asking Fortunato if he wanted to go back, so that no suspicion came upon him. Montresor wore a black silk mask to cover his face which matches his dark deed of killing Fortunato. The color black and darkness used by Poe is symbolic of the gothic element and of an act of revenge. Thus we see how Poe uses colors and imagery well to the purpose of creating the gothic atmosphere in the stories. Due to this we see that the characters are under the effect of the gothic element. All the three characters use darkness for their purpose and to fulfill their goals. Montresor uses the deep dark vaults to kill and bury Fortunato, the unnamed narrator carries out his plan of killing the old man in a pitch dark room and the painter closes himself with his wife in the dark tower to strengthen his focus on the painting.
Mystery is another element that runs through the stories, playing with the curiosity of the readers. What exactly Montresor will do to Fortunato, or the unnamed narrator will do to the old man or what the story was behind the oval portrait of the young woman are all mysteries that arouse the curiosity of the readers and keep them engrossed in the stories. Notwithstanding, there is something missing in the stories which leaves the readers with certain questions. Some parts of these stories seem to missing important information, such as a reader would like to know in what way Fortunato insulted Montresor, how the narrator of “The Oval Portrait” got injured and landed up at that chateau and why did the eye of the old man bother the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
It would be absolutely true to say that Poe used the gothic element to its best in all the three stories and the three characters we discussed in this paper, were definitely under its spell. Poe used his writing techniques very effectively and skillfully to create horror, suspense, fear, and show the emotional instable state of his characters.
Reference
Introduction to Poe Criticism. n.d. Salem Press. 12 Dec 2013
http://salempress.com/store/pdfs/poe_critical_insights.pdf
Virtual Salt. 2011. Elements of the Gothic Novel. 12 Dec 2013
http://www.virtualsalt.com/gothic.htm
Gradesaver. 2013. Poe’s Short Stories Summary and Analysis. 12 Dec 2013
http://www.gradesaver.com/poes-short-stories/study-guide/section11/
Sparknotes. 2013. Poe’s Short Stories. The Tell-Tale Heart. 12 Dec 2013
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section6.rhtml
Sparknotes. 2013. Poe’s Short Stories. “The Cask of Amontillado”. 12 Dec 2013
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section11.rhtml
The Telegraph. 2013. Edgar Allan Poe, Master of Horror. 12 Dec 2013 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4398444/Edgar-Allan-Poe-master-of-horror.html
