Edgar Allan Poe is one of America’s most famous writers, arguably the prince of horror stories. His oeuvre covers a wide range of work, from poetry to prose, the Arab world to 19th century America, and detective fiction to horror stories. His 1845 poem, The Raven, made him a sensation and is regarded as one of the genre-defining works of American literature. His life and career were deeply troubled, but his legacy has enshrined him along with the greats.
Poe’s stories are stylistically unique – displaying a huge diversity of elements taken from all over English and world literature. Some key markers and preferences repeat in various stories, highlighting his unique view of looking at things, the almost malicious enjoyment with which he treated his characters, and his careful building of scene and character. In this analysis, I review 3 of Poe’s stories: The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Masque of the Red Death. Between them, these are 3 of Poe’s most compelling and haunting short stories. Each one displays his unique style at its best.
Place and Surroundings
For me, one of the most powerful tools used by Poe is his careful, detailed focus on the place where his characters are. In Poe’s stories, the place is a character as powerful as any other. The place in fact defines the deeds about to be done – each location is rich with the symbolism of the location, and in all 3 stories bears a key relation to the sense of fear and desperation which are central to the stories. In each story, Poe references death and the end through his settings:
In The Cask of Amontillado, Poe repeatedly refers to the dark dungeon, with its spider like webs drawing the unfortunate Fortunato into their trap, the clamminess and the foul smells that pervade the area, and the darkness and loneliness of the place.
“We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow. "The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults
We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame. “
When the end finally comes, it is in a manner that makes the most of the setting – a death entombed in the dark filthy place, with no one to hear you scream, and only the pressure of darkness and dampness all around. It is so horrible, even the happy murderer Montresor takes pity on his victim and leaves him a little light.
In the Pit and The Pendulum, the horror of the place is supreme. A dark chamber, in which the narrator must grope around, not knowing who or what he is doing there. When it is revealed that the chamber is the death device, the horror only compounds as bit by bit the narrator and the reader realize that there is no escape whatsoever.
“The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me.
Quitting the wall, I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. y lips and the upper portion of my head, although seemingly at a less elevation than the chin, touched nothing. At the same time my forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of decayed fungus arose to my nostrils. I put forward my arm, and shuddered to find that I had fallen at the very brink of a circular pit, What I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or joints occasioned the depression. The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and other more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls. “
In the Masque of the Red Death, the fabulous chamber in the fabulous fortress is arrayed allegorically, in this not so much for terror as of foreboding. The chambers, built from east to west, morning to sunset, show the various parts and phases of life. The last chamber shows Death, the natural conclusion of life, with a clock that chimes time away, reminding the guests that no walls and barred gates can keep the inevitable out.
“ deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. n the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. “
The skillful use of setting to build mood and communicate with the reader without narration is one of the hallmarks of Poe’s style.
Irony, Cruel Humor and the Actors
Poe frequently uses ironic or tongue-in-cheek references to the various characters he employs in his writings. These are not only the human characters, but animals, objects, symbols, and settings. In the ironic use, the characters both represent the opposite of what outward indications would say about them, and deliberately indicate to the reader the ignorance of the actors, as if the reader were an insider in the cruel game of the murderers or the torturers. The reader can thus confront his or her own reactions – do you want to warn them of their fate? Are you enjoying what is happening to them? Are you disgusting but attracted at the same time? In each story, there is at least one such foil which brings home to the reader the personal nature of what is happening – when the association with the suffering is broken.
A common device is names, for instance in The Cask of Amontillado, the man walking unwittingly to his death is named Fortunato, though clearly she did not smile upon him. Similarly the confident Prince Prospero tries to use his wealth and power to deflect away the tide of fate that has brought the red death upon the country, only to find it isn’t any use to him after all. In the Pit and the Pendulum, where at first glance there are no other characters, Father Time makes an appearance – only instead of the benevolent Chronus, he is now an executioner, this time the philosophical idea of time as the killer of men turned into a cruel joke by the torturers of the inquisition.
Another device used similarly is the cruel mockery and even debasement of those who suffer at the hands of those who have power over them. As if it is not enough that pain and death are in the offing, people also have to bear with mockery and humiliation, their every action showing them as foolish, or low or ignorant. As in the Cask of Amontillado:
“But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said--
"Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo --he! he! he! --over our wine --he! he! he!"
"The Amontillado!" I said.
"He! he! he! --he! he! he! --yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."
"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."
In the Pit and the Pendulum, the series of traps set by the torturers for the prisoner are themselves set out as jests. He is the toy of the torturers, in their amusement chamber. But some parts define his degradation:
“For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon which I lay, had been literally swarming with rats. They were wild, bold, ravenous; their red eyes glaring upon me as if they waited but for motionlessness on my part to make me their prey. "To what food," I thought, "have they been accustomed in the well?" They pressed—they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps. They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name, swelled my bosom “ – a scene which always reminds me of the ultimate play on the protagonist’s fears in the novel 1984 by George Orwell.
In the Masque of the Red Death, it is the author who paints first flattering, then uneasy, then tongue-full-raspberry picture of the prince and his court (it is probably necessary, as this is one of Poe’s stories not told through the first person). The author gently lampoons the prince and the courtiers for their lives and their presumptions:
“ the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not. There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.”
Syntax and Use of Words
Poe’s use of vocabulary is always rich and diverse. One of his calling cards is the reference to some other literary concept or story in his own story – The Commedia dell’Arte (Harlequin, Punchinello and the gang) in the Cask of Amontillado, the imaginary country of Ultima Thule (place beyond the north winds) then popular in stories of Arthurian and Nordic legend in the Pit and the Pendulum, and Hernani – Victor Hugo’s novel, in the Masque of the Red Death.
Poe also marks highly elaborate vocabulary and complex, many layered syntax as part of his descriptions, which are always vivid and highly emotive views generally from the point of view of an individual. For instance, in the Cask of Amontillado:
“I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones.”
Or as in the Pit and the Pendulum:
“But what mainly disturbed me was the idea that had perceptibly descended. I now observed—with what horror it is needless to say—that its nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.”
And similarly in the Masque of the Red Death:
“ there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. “
Major Source
Poe, E. A. (n.d.). THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLEN POE (Vol. 2). Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25525/25525-h/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#link2H_4_0014
