The Eerie and Bizarre of Poe Essay Example

The Eerie and Bizarre of Poe Essay Marvin Guarantor Liz Smith English B 26 September 2014 The Eerie and Bizarre of Poe Through all the deaths and fatality of his stories, Edgar Allan Poe is a man of stories that are eerie and bizarre. Poe is best known for his dark and gothic fiction where it seemed very uncomfortable to read but yet pleasing to the reader. His themes In his stones would deal with death that would include physical signs, effects of decomposition, and premature burial. In the book Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing by Edgar V. Roberts, Popes short stories are written. They are The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Black Cat, and The Tell-Tale Heart. Each of these stories have their way of representing Popes love for writing dark and gothic based themes. In The Cask of Amontillado, Poe writes about a guy named Mentors whos been Insulted by a another guy named Fortunate and seeks revenge. Mentors leaves Fortunate In a small crypt and lets him rot and die. The Fall of the House of usher tells a story about an unnamed narrator and two residents of the house named Redbrick and Madeline. We will write a custom essay sample on The Eerie and Bizarre of Poe specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Eerie and Bizarre of Poe specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Eerie and Bizarre of Poe specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Madeline kills Redbrick and then the house crumbles down as the narrator escapes. In The Masque of the Red Death, a disease known as the Red Death is spreading and a wealthy man named Prosper decides to throw a huge party to keep the disease away. Turns out, everyone at the party and Prosper himself dies from the disease. The Black Cat tells a story about an unnamed narrator who gets drunk very often and kills his pet black cat. He then owns another black cat and then decides to kill it. His wife defends the cat and then she ends up getting killed instead. In The Tell-Tale heart, an unnamed narrator would stalk an old man every eight at his house and ends up killing him. In an article by Jennifer Boucher, Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Edgar Allan Popes The Tell Tale Heart she describes the reason why the narrator kills the old man. Judging from all these quick summaries of the stories, Poe was a very dark and gothic writer. He had the power to make things sound uncomfortable and yet kept his stories very interesting. Edgar Allan Poe writes eerie and bizarre scenes in his short stories that seems unreal to readers. In the short story The Cask of Amontillado, a scene that Poe wrote that was Zaire was when the narrator leaves a man to die In the catacombs. The narrator, Mentors, baits Fortunate, the guy who Insulted him, to the underground in search of the Amontillado. This scheme was a trick from the beginning and Mentors wants revenge on Fortunate for insulting him. In the short story, Poe writes how Mentors chains up Fortunate to the stone wall. Poe writes in his story: In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two, horizontally. From one these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work off few seconds to secure It. Excess (Poe 252). Fortunate is now stapled to his grave and he cant do anything about it. He is Just left there to rot and die. The bizarre thing about this scene in the story that Poe wrote is how dramatic a person can be when they are insulted. It is perfectly normal if someone gets upset when being physically or emotionally hurt and may seek revenge. Unexpectedly, Mentors went to the extreme and decides to take Fortunate to the underground and implement his sick plan for revenge. Off of being insulted, for that very reason, Fortunate must suffer and die of possibly thirst ND starvation in the catacombs Just because of some putdown on Mentors. Anybody that is a normal human being wouldnt go as far Mentors actions when being taunted by another. All in all, The Cask of the Amontillado shows Popes use of bizarre scenes in this short story. The short story The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe writes a bizarre tale of a house thats apparently haunted where 1 of its residents gets buried alive and seeks revenge while the narrator escapes. The story begins with an unnamed narrator visiting his friend Redbrick Usher at his house. Redbrick thinks his house is haunted ND he has a sister named Madeline is very ill. Redbrick is very paranoid on whats going on in his household and worries for Madeline. The narrator tries his best to comfort Redbrick but it doesnt help much. Madeline then dies off from her illness so Redbrick decides to bury her underneath the house with the help from the narrator. Redbrick is still paranoid from hearing strange noises and thinks they buried his sister alive. According to the story, as Redbrick feared, Madeline is standing at the door dressed in white and covered in blood from the struggle of getting out from her burial. Poe writes about Madeline: There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold, then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated (Poe). This creates a bizarre feeling for the reader because its not normal to make a mistake on whether someone is dead or not. The thought of burying omen alive is very unreal considering Redbrick examined her before burying her. Another thing that was strange is the fact that Madeline was ill and she still had some strength get herself out from her burial. Not only Poe writes about something thats supernatural about the house, but also for Madeline. This shows that something that was not Madeline gave her power to seek her revenge for getting buried alive. Its unusual how Poe sets up a story about the death of the 2 residents of their own house. As the attack from Madeline continues, the narrator escapes as the house of the Usher family crumbles down. All in all, Poe tells a bizarre story on how a woman escapes her own grave and seeks her revenge for getting buried alive. Popes The Masque of the Red Death, tells us an eerie story of how nobody can escape death no who matter you are. The story is about a prince named Prosper, who decides to throw a fancy masquerade ball to keep away from the known disease as the Red Death. In his castle, there is a room that is black and red in color where all of his guest would try to avoid. An ebony clock in the black room would ring every the red death, and frightens everyone at the party. According to the short story, the invited guest gets revealed and everyone dies at the party. Poe writes And now was acknowledge the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And now one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedded halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay'(Poe 434). Just like any other disease, the Red Death comes in other peoples lives without ann.s consent. Poe describes the disease as a thief in the middle of the night where it represents the uninvited entry of the Red Death. This tiny description of the Red Death makes the story more eerie for the reader because the writer creates this image of a humanoid thats suppose to be a disease. When this uninvited guest finally gets revealed, everyone at the party drops dead, even the host, Prosper. Ironically, this all happens in the black room that everyone tried to avoid. As the ebony clock ticks out, the last of the party goers die. To sum up, Poe tries to create this image where no matter what you do, you cannot escape death, especially when theres a disease outbreak. The Black Cat, a short story by Poe, writes a bizarre story about an unnamed orator who is insanely cruel to his two cats and the murder of his wife. The narrator has a drinking problem which causes him to have violent mood swings towards his first owned cat, named Pluto, and his wife. One night, the narrator rages at Pluto by stabbing out its eye with his knife and hangs Pluto the next day. The narrator then obtains another cat shortly after. Just like Pluto, he attempts to injure it but the wife desperately tries to defend the cat. The narrator turns on his wife and kills her while the cat disappears. Considering the different options to hide the body, he narrator takes advantage of the damp walls in the basement and hides his wife within them. Four days after the murder, the police arrive to the narrators apartment and tries to find the dead body. In the story, the author writes that the police found the dead body through the walls and narrator finds the missing cat. Poe writes It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman(Poe). This story is very bizarre because it describes the cruelty towards animals and domestic violence. Its pretty typical for someone to get into a vicious mood from drinking to much alcohol but the narrator goes way too far. Stabbing out a cats eye and letting it suffer for a day is already gruesome as it is. Finally killing the cat the day after its suffering takes it to the extreme. Then another attempted beating for his second cat but turns into the murder of his wife is quite devastating. Poe writes at a very disturbing level that makes his stories very bizarre. He finds ways to make his story so ridiculous but still abeles to that frightening image for the reader. At the ending of the story, he surprises the readers the second cat was with his dead wife in the walls. Also it gave it out to the police that the body was in the narrators basement. Thus Poe makes a bizarre story about the cruelty of his cats and the murder of his wife. In the story The Tell Tale Heart, Poe writes an eerie story about the narrator who murders an old man because of the look of his eye. The story is about an unnamed while he slept. One night, the old man wakes up in fear and cries out. The narrator continues to stand there like he always had but shortly after, he attacks and murders the old man. The narrator claims that the old mans eye is like the eyes of a vulture and describes it as an evil eye. The old mans eye was the only reason why the narrator despised him. According to Jennifer Buckboards Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Edgar Allan Popes The Tell Tale Heart , she describes the relation between the narrator and old mans eye. She writes Madness is an important motif in the story as the narrator insists that he is not mad while detailing his act of murder upon man with whom he had no other problem than his ugly eye(Boucher). The reason why this story is so eerie is because first of all, the narrator is constantly stalking an old man at his apartment. This can be very frightening to the reader because this can actually happen. It may not be so common, but this is something that Poe wrote thats more realistic and practical. On the other hand, stalking someone because of the look of the old mans eye seems very strange. A lot of murders happen because of what people look like but focusing their hate on Just an eye is odd. Even by this little ascription is Popes story, he creates an image of how people can be still cruel to the smallest things. Unfortunately, the old man has to suffer because of the way his eye looked. It is clear that Poe writes an eerie story about the murder of an old man because of his eye. It has been shown that Poe is a man of strange stories. He wrote a short story about leaving a man trapped and left to die. Another story was about a haunted house and the revenge of a woman who was buried alive. Poe gave us the idea that we can never escape death no mater what we do. He wrote about the killing of animals and murders with odd reason.