An argument to support a claim that Edgar Allen Poe uses a repertoire of strategies to create suspense in the Raven, The Black Cat, and the Tell Tale Heart.
Edgar Allen Poe is a master in creating tension and this is present in several of his stories among which one may count The Raven, The Black Cat and the Tell Tale Heart. Tension is an important part of Poe’s strategy since we never seem to know what is coming next and this culminates in a frenetic sense of energy and momentum in the story. Poe relies on a number of techniques in these three stories and one may mention the foreshadowing where we are consistently led to believe that the narrator is about to meet his impending doom. The leitmotif of an object which is in most cases an animal which is black in colour also creates a sense of foreboding and high tension since doom is to be expected at one point or another.
In ‘The Raven we are faced with the creation of tension especially by the repeating of the word ‘Nevermore’ which is continuously intoned by the bird when questioned by the narrator. Here we have a sense of impending doom and there is also an element of masochism in the narrator as he continually asks questions of the Raven and gets the same stoic and negative answers. It seems that the strategy used to create tension here is that of repetition which is consistent with other Poe stories. The descent into madness is another aspect of a carefully crafted strategy to imbue the poem with a sense of insecurity as well as intensity.
The Black Cat
The Black Cat uses a similar strategy to create tension with the narrator telling a story. The descent into violence and alcoholism is part of the story and there is also considerable tension in the part leading to the narrative when the cat begins to act strangely and the narrator gouges out the animal’s eyes. The part which leads to the hanging of the cat is particularly powerful as here we are observing the inner savagery of man. The night is also an important part of the strategy of tension especially when the house catches fire and all is laid waste. The sense of impending doom and inevitability of the story works upon our imagination and here we can observe the technique of repetition as well as the symbolism created by the animal.
Another strategy used by Poe is the use of visual imagery to create terror. This is an essential part of the story of the Black Cat. The replacing of the murdered cat with another also gives rise to terrible hallucinations and here we have incredible tension as the narrator is being made to face his impending doom.
Here Poe uses a similar strategy as that in ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ where he describes the murdering of the narrator’s wife and the re-appearance of the cat on her head. It is a ghastly situation and as the police find nothing the first time they examine the house, the narrator is almost willed to give himself up accordingly. All this leads to the final situation where the secret is exposed and the culmination of all the accumulated tension explodes.
The Tell Tale Heart
This short story is almost exactly similar to The Black Cat but in the narrator’s case, it is an old man with an eye like a vulture. Here again we have the comparison to a bird which acts as a magnet to hatred and violence. We have the classic creation of tension at every step of the way mostly in the way the narrator plans the murder of the old man – this is a methodical and highly sophisticated exercise. The story which is also imbued with paranoia is very much a replica of The Back Cat and the tension is also present when the police enter the house to make a search and the narrator is almost beside himself to prove his innocence. However with the strategy of attention grabbing, we become part of the story and are almost goading the police to discover the body of the man. All is done in a very cunning manner with the unbearable tension created culminating in the narrator’s exhortation to ‘tear up the floorboards’ and see the man lying dead in all his grotesque imagery. However the eye is similar in its sense of impending doom just as the Black Cat and the Raven is in the other short story and poem.
The setting of the three stories is in a room where death and foreboding are part and parcel of proceedings. All is brought together in a sense of incredible tension by using such theories of writing as repetition and supernatural influences. The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart use strategies of building up tension to arrive at the final climax which is the discovery of the murder carried out by the narrator. Poe is extremely skilful at making the reader an essential part of the story and the way the tension builds up to an inevitable climax is used in other short stories such as ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’.
Works Cited:
The Tell-Tale Heart" - Full text of the first printing, from the Pioneer, 1843
Hart, James D. "The Black Cat". The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature. Oxford UP, 1986. Oxford Reference Online. Accessed October 22, 2011.
Adams, John F. "Classical Raven Lore and Poe's Raven" in Poe Studies. Vol. V, no. 2, December 1972. Available online
