Greatness came with a strong nation and thousands of poems and stories that shaped our nation. ... Poe was the master of criticism - he developed his own theory on the mechanics of composition (short story and poetry), he confronted the dark side of human behavior, and what scares humans to insanity. ... (The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe) As a short-story writer, Poe was a fascinating man of imagination. In theme, Poe places the human mind under investigation and probes insanity beneath the surface of normal existence. He was the first author in American literature to make th...

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• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Some of the most striking similarities can be found between "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", two short stories that divulge the inner workings of a perverse mind. First, The plot of these stories is similar in many ways. ... In "Heart", the narrator suffered from insanity and the obvious obsessive disorder. ... Denying his insanity, the narrator from "Heart" is very similar to the man in "The Black Cat", which denies his belief in the superstition of black cats. ... As in most Poe stories, biting and mutilation appear in both. ...

• Word Count: 932
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• Grade Level: High School

Poe's stories of death and decay can be seen in much of his work including "The Black Cat, " and "The Fall of the House of Usher. " In both of these stories, the main characters and settings are similar in the way that they both are telling of diseases eating away at the person; however, one disease is physically eating away at a family, and the other is a disease of insanity. ... Twice near the end of the story, Roderick calls the narrator "Madman! ... In "The Black Cat " the events that take place are unmistakably the ramblings of a madman who cannot seem to control his actions and keep...

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• Grade Level: High School

Above all of these devices centers Poe's use of diction throughout the short story. ... This is continued throughout the rest of the short story with the use of many similar adjectives and descriptions. ... Poe doesn't stop there, however; he continues on to discuss the mental state of Usher which reaches the point of insanity with the death of his sister, Madeline Usher. ... The goal of Edgar Allan Poe in all of his short stories is to convey one particular effect to the reader. He does this very effectively through his use of diction, imagery, and foreshadowing throughout the s...

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The short story "The Cask of Amontillado," by Edgar Allan Poe, shows the protagonist Montresor is out for revenge. Poe's dark story leads the reader to believe that Montresor is malicious and unremorseful. ... The use of the setting represents the insanity of the acts that are about to take place in the story. ... However, the carnival and catacomb settings of the story portray Montresor as a heartless killer who shows no remorse. ... Edgar Allan Poe wrote this short story to show the personality of a conceited and clever man in 1800's. ...

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Firstly the concept of unnatural storyworlds mean that do not comply with what the reader knows is otherwise physically, logically, or humanly impossible in the physical world; one example of this could be Robert Cover`s "The Babysitter" a short story which depicts numerous irreconcilable event sequences. ... The most important example of this could be The Tell-Tale Heart; is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe in which the narrator tries to persuade us of his sanity while he is describing a murder that he committed. ... With this story the author intends to convey us, through unreliabl...

• Word Count: 863
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, has a very dark mood which will be exposed as the audience is gradually sucked into the plot. ... Poe uses contextual symbols in this story to create the depressing mood that this specific short story is notorious for. ... This helps the reader better understand the mood of the story. ... Through the use of imagery Poe was capable of establishing the depressing mood of the short story since he was typically focused more on the darker side of story telling. ... Just his looks alone contributed to the darkness of the mood which made it eviden...

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Insanity is described as an extreme state of foolishness and irrationality. Although the narrator of Edgar Allen Poe's short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, let's his lack of sound reasoning drive him to murder, he perceives himself to be a cunning and powerful master of fate in his plea to justify his sanity. ... During the cryptic story, the narrator ignores to address his own deranged behavior; for example he watched the old man while he was asleep, by peeking his head through the door of the bedroom for entire week before he was slain. The story lacks any concrete details as to why t...

• Word Count: 917
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

He successively edited two other well-known periodicals, and won respect as a critical the same time that his poems and short stories were attraction wide notice both in the U.S. and abroad. ... Poe is mainly known as a poet, but he was also a short story writer. Apart from the four detective stories, Poe's reputation of being the latter rests mainly on his tales of horror. ... Poe's short stories of this type stems from what is taken to be cheap or sensational Gothic style (Gargano). ... Poe is a serious artist who merely explores insanity in his characters. ...

• Word Count: 936
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• Grade Level: High School

Moreover, the short story consists of an old man with whom the narrator's relationship is a bit hazy, despite the narrator's comment of "For his gold I had no desire" fits the way that the old man may be a relative whose death can fiscally profit the writer (53). ... The story starts of with disloyalty by attempting to persuade the reader he is not crazy, however the reader rapidly derives the writer as someone wild. ... His dis-trustfulness towards the man made his heart beat even faster and in his condition of insanity he admits to murdering the old man with expectations of freeing...

• Word Count: 759
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

An Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's Main Characters In each of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Cask of Amontillado", Poe writes each main character with different personalities although some similar traits can be found in all his main characters. ... He starts off the story by convincing the reader he is not a madman. Insanity is one personality trait that is usually linked to all Poe characters. ... Both characters had well planned murder plots in each story. ... In both stories they refer to their murder victims ...

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• Grade Level: High School

The characters that I have chosen to analyze are in Poe's story 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. ... Poe himself was described as manic, yet brilliant, similar to the mad man in the story. In the second paragraph of this dark story, Poe uses Formalist and Marxist criticism. ... After the murder he still tries to justify his insanity to us with a paradox, "If you still think me mad, you will no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.... I think Poe did a wonderful job writing this short yet vivid story. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

The "Tale-Tale Heart" is a famous short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. ... The story's two essential characters are the narrator and the old man, who go unnamed throughout the tale. ... If we analyze this theory further, we can recall that the only bit of color highlighted in the story is the old man's evil blue eye. ... As a final point, through the whole story, which is basically his confession, the narrator's actions mark his insanity abundantly clear; for example: sitting down on the mattress after he smothers the old man, hiding the body inside the house, and l...

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Arising from these new techniques came the Romantic approach to the development of Gothic novels, and short stories. ... In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", the author depicts the workings of a human mind on the verge of insanity through the use of an allegory of which all characters and events of the story symbolize the human mind's transition into madness, universally conveying the terror that overwhelms and finally destroys the fragile mind of Roderick Usher. ... The foundation of the story's meaning is found within the connection between Roderick and Mad...

• Word Count: 1147
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate