Course No.10: The
American Literature
Enrollment no.:
PG14101019
Email-Id: jasoliyavaishali@gmail.com
Prepared by: Vaishali
Hareshbhai Jasoliya
Submitted to: MAHARAJA
KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
Introduction:
Edgar
Allan Poe is best known as the author of numerous spine tingling stories of
horror and suspense. He should also be remembered, however, as the author who
helped to establish and develop America’s one real contribution to the world of
literature – the short story form. Poe was the first writer to recognize that
the short story was a different kind of fiction than the novel and the first to
insist that, for a story to have a powerful effect on the reader, every single
detail in the story should contribute to that effect.
No one who is interested in the short story from can afford to ignore his ideas or his fiction. Poe also helped to make periodical publishing more important in American literary culture. Poe was an important figure in this battle to make the United States a literary force in world culture.
No one who is interested in the short story from can afford to ignore his ideas or his fiction. Poe also helped to make periodical publishing more important in American literary culture. Poe was an important figure in this battle to make the United States a literary force in world culture.
How to write a Short Story according to Edger Allan Poe:
Edger Allan Poe was a Pioneer of the Short Story.
“Literature is the most noble of professions.
In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no
seducing me from the path.”
In a time where Short Stories are becoming more popular
in an increasingly competitive market Poe is often referred to as the ‘Pioneer’
or the ‘father’ of the Short Story; that is because he was the first person to
set down a consistent set of principles on how to write what he referred to as
the ‘Short prose narrative; ‘the prose tale’ and the ‘brief tale’. If
constructed successfully it would become the ‘the tale proper’.
Poe’s Theories of the Short Story:
In his theories of the short story, Poe argues that, whereas in long works one
may be pleased with particular passages, in short pieces the pleasure results
from the perception of the oneness, the uniqueness, and the overall unity of
the piece. Poe emphasizes that by "Plot" he means pattern and design,
not simply the temporal progression of events. It is pattern that makes the separate
elements of the work meaningful, not mere realistic cause and effect. Moreover,
Poe insists that only when the reader has as awareness of the "end"
of the work - that is, its overall purpose - will seemingly trivial
elements of the story become meaningful in its total pattern.
Poe, a visionary of literature, and with a vested interest in science
and psychology, challenged his readers by making them question whether they
were reading fast or fiction. Poe is often judged on the basis of errors and
misunderstandings about his personality, He has been called an alcoholic, a drug
addict, a hack and a sex pervert. There is little doubt that Poe, however, both
in his criticism and in his dark, metaphysically mysterious stories, helped
create a literature that made American writing a serious cultural force.
A young
nobleman, haunted by a family curse, buries his twin Sister alive often she
falls onto a cataleptic trans.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is
Poe's best known and most admired story, and rightfully so: It expertly
combines in a powerful and economical way all of his most obsessive themes, and
it brilliantly reflects his aesthetic theory that all the elements of a
literary work must contribute to the single unified effect or Pattern of the
work itself. The central mystery on which the thematic structure of the story
depends is the nature of Roderick Usher's illness, Although its symptoms
consist of an extreme sensitivity to all sensory stimuli and a powerful
unmotivated fear, now here does Poe suggest its cause expert to hint at some
dark family curse or hereditary illness.
The actual subject of the story, as is the cause with most of Poe's work, is
the nature of the idealized artwork and the precarious situation of the
artist. Roderick, with his paintings, his musical compositions, and his
poetry, is above all, an artist. It is the particular nature of his art that is
inextricably tied up with his illness, Not only does he never leaves the house,
but he also cannot tolerate light, Sound, touch, order or taste. The narrator
says that if anyone has ever painted pure idea, then Roderick is that person.
As a result, Roderick is nothing metaphorically to feed upon but himself.
The house in which Roderick lives in like an artwork-an edifice that
exists by don’t of its unique structure. When the narrator first sees it, he
observes that it is the combination of elements that constitutes its mystery
and that a different arrangement of its particulars would be sufficient to
modify its capacity for sorrowful impression. He believes that, as a result of
the arrangement of the stones, the house has taken on life. All these factors
suggest Poe's own aesthetic theory, that the "life" of any artwork
results not from its imitation of external reality but rather from its structure
or pattern.
Physical life is not so easily suppressed, however, and Madeline returns from
her underground tomb to unite her dying body with Roderick's idealized spirit.
As the story nears its horrifying climax, art and reality become even more
intertwined. Madeline, Roderick, and the house all fall into the dark tarn, the
abyss of nothingness, and become as if had never been.
A young man, kills the old man he lives with because of the old man' s
eye; he then feels compelled to confess.
Poe is often thought to be the author of stories about mad persons and
murders, but attention is seldom given to the psychological nature of the
madness, in his stories. "The Tell-Tale Heart", one of his best known
stories about murderous madness, is also one of his most psychologically
complex works. The story is told in the first person voice by the killer, who
has obviously been locked up in a prison or in an insane asylum for his crime.
The central problem of the story is the narrator’s motivation for killing the
old man. There was neither object nor passion for his crime: instead, it was
the old man's eye. He says that when the eye fell on him, his blood ran cold
and that he made up his mind to kill the old man and rid himself of the eye
forever. To understand a Poe story, one must accept Poe's central dictum that
every element in the work must contribute to its central effect. The
determination of those elements that have most relevance to the central effect
of the story. Such a displacement of the image of an "eye" for that
which it sounds like the "I" - is not an uncommon "mistake"
for the dreamlike nature of the narrator's madness. In order to understand why
the narrator's might wish to destroy himself by destroying the old man.
Throughout the story, the narrator notes that the beat of the old man's heart
is like the tricking of a watch. Moreover, he says, he and the old man have
both listened to the "death watches" in the wall at night. Finally,
there is the theme of the tell - tale heart itself - a heart that tells a
tale. Although in the surface plot of the story, the narrator thinks that it is
the old man's heart that " tells a tale " on him when the police came
to check on a scream that has been reported to them, it is clear that it is his
own heart he hears beating.
The narrator cannot very well escape the time - bound death of self by killing
the self; he must displace his desire to destroy the "I" by
projecting it onto the "eye" of the old man with whom he identifies.
Thus, by destroying the "eye" he does, indirectly, succeed in
destroying the "I".
" The Cask of Amontillado"
In this sardonic revenge story, Poe undermines the plot with irony.
"The Cask of Amontillado" is one of the clearest examples of
Poe's theory of the unity of the Short Story, for every detail in the story
contributes to the overall ironic effect. The plot is relatively simple. Every
time Montresor urges Fortunato to turn back for his health's sake, he succeeds
in drawing him further into the snares of his revenge plot. The fact that
Montresor knows how his plot is going to end makes it possible for him to play
little ironic tricks on Fortunato.
The irony of the story cuts much deeper than this, however, does Montresor tell
Fortunato that he is walling him up to fulfill his need for revenge; in fact,
Fortunato seems to have no idea why he is being punished at all. The ultimate
irony of the story then is that, although Montresor has tried to fulfill his
two criteria for a successful revenge, Fortunato has fulfilled them better than
he has. The story ends with the Latin phrase "rest in peace", even
after fifty years Montresor will not be able to rest in peace, for his gleeful
confession of his story damns him to Hell for all eternity.
Although "The Cask of Amontillado" seems on the surface a
relatively simple revenge story, it is, in fact, a highly complex story riddled
with ironic reversals. Every detail in the story contributes to this central
effect, and it is the overall design of the story that communicates its meaning
- not some simple moral embedded within it or tacked on to the end.
At the end we conclude the point; we can say that, Edgar
Allan Poe was the first writer to recognize that the short story was a
different kind of fiction than the novel. He emphasizes that by “plot” he means
pattern and design, not simply the temporal progression of events. He is the
‘pioneer’ or the ‘father’ of the short story.
Works Cited
Works Cited
Poe, Edger Allan. American
Literaratre analysis. 2015. 2015
<http://www.enotes.com/topics/edgar-allan-poe/critical-essays/analysis-3>.
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