Best known for his short stories flooded with mystery and the macabre, Poe is recognized as one of the foremost masters of horror that United States has ever produced. ... Furthermore, in his review of Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales, he defends short story as preferable to the novel and states that the ideal short story should be short enough to be read at one sitting in order to preserve this unity of effect or rather impression. ... "2 On that account in Poe's short stories every aspect of the tale contributes to its overall tone, including the motif of madness. ... Therefore th...

• Word Count: 1406
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

"The Fall of the House of Usher," " a short story published in 1939, is one of the most popular fictional narratives of Edgar Allan Poe. ... This mythic tale, and Poe's other terror short stories alike, aims at arousing readers' sense of inner disgust or terror, as Poe himself stated in his preface to "Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque"" (1840) that the terror he meant to create was "not of the Germany, but of the soul." ... To specify, Lady Madeline is a parallel of Roderick Usher; the twin sister is the identical "ghost " to him and haunted him, resulting in his insanity and...

• Word Count: 1692
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is a short story in which it could see reflected the influence of the author's life. ... Regarding the events of the story, they develop in the nineteenth century. ... In the same line, Faulkner deals with issues such as gender, race and class and also he describes the romance between a southern lady and a northern man who represents the different ideologies in each location This short story about tragedy presents the life and death of a southern woman who became mentally ill while living in isolation according to the obsolete traditions of the South A...

• Word Count: 1289
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Heathcliff's love for Catherine is fanatical to the point of insanity as he is even jealous of the worms decaying her corpse. ... Out of all the short stories, sadism is most evident in the Count from "The Snow Child". ... The fact that she has emphasised his loneliness in this way may heighten the idea that it is significant in provoking his insanity. ...

• Word Count: 1898
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

By doing a close reading of this passage, we will be able to understand the narrator better, and hence, get a better understanding of the story. ... This trait of self-inducing entrapment is continued till the end of the story, where she once again traps herself, this time in the abyss of insanity. ... The words "tired" and "exhaust" were used many times throughout the short passage and she also describes herself as "fretful and querulous", which are all signs of tiredness. ... Being the central image of the whole story, the yellow wallpaper plays a very important role towards the understan...

• Word Count: 1540
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

By doing a close reading of this passage, we will be able to understand the narrator better, and hence, get a better understanding of the story. ... This trait of self-inducing entrapment is continued till the end of the story, where she once again traps herself, this time in the abyss of insanity. ... The words "tired" and "exhaust" were used many times throughout the short passage and she also describes herself as "fretful and querulous", which are all signs of tiredness. ... Being the central image of the whole story, the yellow wallpaper plays a very important role towards the understan...

• Word Count: 1476
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The story takes the form of a journal of the main character. ... Gilman has suffered an extreme mental depression as the result of psychiatric treatments, prior to writing this short story. ... Weir Mitchell treated me with what I considered the inevitable result, progressive insanity" (Gilman 102). ... The wall between the reality and the fantastic world slowly becomes transparent; the reader is allowed short glimpses inside the world beyond reality, when the humanoid face in the wallpaper seems to move. As Jane's attention is more and more devoted to the wallpaper's peculiar charac...

• Word Count: 2394
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Cultural Narratives Sean and David's Long Drive tells the story of two friends who decide to travel around Australia in a Ford Falcon to escape their dull and boring lives in urban Australia. ... The varying settings used in the text are an integral part of Sean and David's story, furthermore the way in which Sean describes and interacts with his surroundings is equally important to the creation of the story as an anti-travel text. ... This technique almost always works against the locale they are at; the characters are usually close to insanity or just really annoying. ... Its sh...

• Word Count: 1853
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Each time the story flashes back to speak about Kreisler, the readers are led to discover more and more strange mannerisms about him. ... He shows a vast variety of emotions within a very short period of time whilst speaking to Abraham " he was furious and full of anger which then quickly turned into excitement and laughter. ... Kreisler's emotions were constantly changing vastly that the characters around him in the story (as well as the readers) could never predict when, or where, or how he's mood will change. ... His insanity and constant ˜ups and downs' in his...

• Word Count: 1593
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Caligari (1919), The Golem (1920), and Nosferatu(1922) were highly symbolic and deliberately surrealistic portrayals of filmed stories. ... The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films); the German name for this type of storytelling was called Kammerspielfilm. ... The short shots were referred to as shocks or attractions because they stood out and commanded attention within a film. ... Using "types- (Eisenstein was not interested in using professional...

• Word Count: 2143
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate