Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic, a representative of the literary movement called Romanticism. He became popular thanks to his dark and grim short stories. Poe is considered to be the founder of the detective-fiction genre and psychological prose in literature. He is immediately recognized by his famous poem The Raven. But the writer proved his ability to create dread and fear not only in poetic lines, but also in prose. So, the short story The Cask of Amontillado also takes an honored place in Poe’s gallery of nightmares and horror.
In both The Raven and The Cask of Amontillado the author creates a mysterious and terrifying tone by placing the narrator in a dark and lonely setting. In the poem the actions happen: “Once upon a midnight dreary” and “in the bleak December / And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.” (Poe) The narrator is sitting alone in a dark room on a winter night. Such a setting is used to prepare the reader for the dreadful things that will happen and in order to hold the needed atmosphere throughout the poem.
In the short story the scene unfolds in the vaults of the palace in Italy: “down under the ground, deep under the old walls of my palace.” (Poe) While walking down the corridors of catacombs deeper and deeper into the darkness, the writer escalate the situation by adding more and more horrifying epithets and descriptions. He does it with the same purpose as in the poem – to deep the reader into this horrifying setting.
Edgar Poe is a master of imagery. He uses it in both his works to convey the feeling of fear, terror and approaching and inevitable death. In The Raven the author plays with different types of imagery. The visual imagery is aimed to appeal to the reader’s sense of vision and is developed in the poem through the description of the place. Poe uses such epithets like: “dreary”, “bleak”, “dying”, “dark”, “sad”, “fantastic terrors”, “mortal”, “grave and stern”, “grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous” and many others in order to create a scary image. (Poe) Poe conveys the narrator’s feelings and emotions that immediately are transmitted to the reader: “weak and weary”, “thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors”, “wondering, fearing, / Doubting, dreaming dreams.” (Poe) The auditory imagery also plays a great role in the poem, as the raven comes to him after knocking at the door. Such a sudden and unexpected interruption also brings a drop into this ocean of fear created by the author. He writes: “suddenly there came a tapping, / As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door” and “But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token.” (Poe) The repetitive use of the word “tapping” in the poem wakes up the anxiety and makes the reader be on the alert.
The imagery in The Cask of Amontillado is also purposed to convey the feeling of fear. Poe mentions all the time the similar epithets as the tools of visual imagery: “cool, dark, still”, “fierce light”, “thick darkness” and “foulness of the air”, “walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons”. (Poe) The feel of dread also transmitted through the feelings of Fortunato. He is “trembling with the cold” and coughs all the time. The coughing may be a signal of suffocation that is waiting for Fortunato at the end of the story. The raven’s tapping and Fortunato’s coughing have the same purpose in the works of Poe. The auditory imagery also takes place in the story: “low moaning cry from the depth”, “I closed the lock and chained him” (Poe)
One more thing common within these two works as they both have two characters: the narrator and the raven in the poem and the narrator and Fortunato in the story. In both works one of the characters causes pain and makes the other one feel fear.
The difference between The Raven and The Cask of Amontillado is in the form of writing and that in the story the narrator is the one, who brings suffering and in the poem it is the raven, which makes the narrator lose his sanity.
Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Alan. “The Raven”. The Bedford Introduction To Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. Print.
Poe, Edgar Alan. “The Cask of Amontillado”. The Bedford Introduction To Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. Print.
