English Literature Coursework Essay
Compare and contrast at least two short stories simply by Edgar Allen Poe, spending particular attention to setting, ambiance, characterisation, theme and dialect. Throughout this kind of essay We are comparing and contrasting Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Dark Cat’ and ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. Edgar Allen Poe a new particular preference to what although was great writing this individual believed that the story ought to build incertidumbre and pressure and all techniques should be utilized to build this kind of tension for a big surface finish, his ‘unity of effects’.
Many of Poe’s stories are incredibly gothic and sinister, this can be seen to have been affected by the long chain of very disturbing events in his life just like losing both equally parents, burning off his better half, alcoholism and hallucinations. This individual should never be known as crazy himself but his stories often involve ‘crazy’ narrators and characters. Let me firstly start off of while using setting in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, this is a story set in outdated Italy in which our primary character ‘Montressor’ has been extremely insulted simply by ‘Fortunato’ and find his revenge this individual buries him alive profound underneath his mansion. The setting in the Cask is definitely sinister and in addition ironic.
Its set in a mansion during the carnival, the mansion alone is very medieval and weird which gives all of us the medieval element, nevertheless the fact that its set during carnival is very ironic while carnival should really be a moments of joy and gaiety not really a time for wicked murders such as this. The reason this murder in fact takes place is likewise due to the carnival, as during it a whole lot of cultural boundaries happen to be dropped and laws are much less firmly unplaned which gives him this opportunity to ‘get away with murder’. The deed itself is set deep in Montressors cellar, his catacombs, which offers is with a very gothic ambiance.
The more deeply they descend into the basements can also recently been seen as irony for descending into terrible which gives us another part to the establishing of this experience. ‘The Dark-colored Cat’ is a story collection all at your home in which a very strange number of events come about and the narrator who was each very fond animal fan becomes their enemy and ends up getting rid of one feline and looking to kill his second but instead kills his partner, who he walls up in his basement and accidently walls the cat surviving with her. During this time all of us witness his slow reasonable into say madness.
The setting like i said is all at the narrator home, this is sarcastic as the property is exactly where we are meant to feel most secure and most safe but it this kind of tale it is where these kinds of crazy and rather unsettling events happen, this impacts the reader in such a way which makes all of them think that the house is probably not so safeguarded as they when thought and challenges their views of safety and security. The protection of home is a total contrast towards the sinister occasions that happen.
This is just like the Cask because all deaths in equally stories occur in the narrators home, although is in comparison as in the Cask having been more in charge of where the death could have occurred as he was more ‘sane’, but it in ‘The Black Cat’ he’s less in charge and the fatality of his wife was more spur of the second. The killing in the cask was quite definitely thought out and everything was planned to the last fine detail but in the black cat he is typically drunk or not in a safe way of thinking when the killers are dedicated. I will at this point compare and contrast the atmosphere in both reports.
In the Cask Poe makes a gothic ambiance by talking about the landscape very vibrant and in a hugely gothic detail. Such as ‘upon the damp surface of the catacombs of the montressors’ which gives up a stunning image of an enormous damp basement lined with cob-webs and rats. Likewise the ‘madness’ of the carnival is sarcastic for the madness in the deeds that’s going to take place. In the dark-colored cat the gothic atmosphere is created by the huge range of gothic literature and extremely dramatic writing.
During the history there are group of very unhelpful? awkward? obstructive? uncooperative doings like the pair of fatalities one like a cat plus the other his wife. You can also get lots of ideas towards to supernatural factors starting off together with the connection between black felines and nurses by the narrator’s wife, which usually we can suppose played on his mind through the story and could have cause part of his downfall. The two stories have a big intensity and a great build-up of anxiety. Both reports create terror and a gothic ambiance. Now I can discuss the biggest of all themes from the two stories, the narrators.
The narrator in the Cask is definitely a proud man and not easily annoyed as Poe says that he say bared most of Forunato’s but when he is extremely insulted this individual believes this individual has to visit the extremity of murder to get his vengeance and regain his dignity. I’d the character is actually rather trusted as he doesn’t seem to be ‘insane’, just having revenge in order he believes he can, and he generally mentions that what he’s doing is merely part of human nature and everyone would it just could be not about this scale. His state of mind is definitely pretty protected, he appears to know just what he’s performing and just how he’s going to do that and everything seems a lot planned out to the utter last detail.
His only slide would seem being right at the end when he begins to call away Fortunato’s term where it would seem that he’s starting to feel regret previously for what he’s doing. He’s very sneaky as he understands exactly what things say to help to make Fortunato come with him, such as mentioning ‘Luchresi’ as he sees that Fortunato can be in competition with him and would be jealous to determine him take it to Luchresi instead of him, he basically uses him as being a lure, even though that is every we hear about Luchresi their enough to sway Prospero into the montressors deep vaults. Now intended for the narrator in the black cat, at the beginning of the story he’s made out to be a really respectful and animal supportive character.
In the case of this particular personality I can quickly say that he’s unreliable when he is plainly insane. Unlike the narrator in the cask, during his mental disintegration he begins to hallucinate. Including the ‘enormous, flat’ cat he imagines in house after the fatality of his first kitten, and second the gallows appearing in the tuft of white frizzy hair on the second cat. The gallows are being used as foreshadowing, maybe his death, or another death in the household or his impending capture. Throughout the story the narrators frame of mind deteriates gradually, one reason for this could be his alcoholism that had considered control of him.
He phone calls the alcohol ‘fiend intemperance’ which he says had altered his intended for the more serious, this shows that the narrator can see what’s slowly happening to himself but blames it within the alcohol when he calls this a revolutionary. This provides another layer to the alcohol and qualified prospects up to assume that the narrator’s state of mind is usually not entirely secure. Thus unlike the narrator in the cask all of us feel that he could be rather out of control of his actions great state of mind. Another subject assessment I will produce is in the dialect of the two stories.
Inside the cask Poe uses a big array of linguistic devices. There is certainly extensive terminology throughout the prose which gives it depth and great brilliant detail such as ‘deep dark crypt’; this has two detailed adjectives and alliteration within a tiny space. This gives the tale imagery with this evil crypt and strange vaults. This individual also uses several cases of repetition to describe and give the story yet another part or depth and emphasis in particular essential events in the prose; ‘a succession of loud and shrill screams’. He also offers a wide range of sentence structure, simple, substance and intricate.
The intricate sentences in this prose build tension after which a chemical substance or simple on pertaining to impact. All of these techniques generate and build pressure and depth. There is also paradox, for example the usage of appearance compared to reality where the narrator shows himself as you way when infact actually it is clearly obvious they can be not. Foreshadowing is also used, this is when a particular event is mentioned or perhaps hinted whenever become later on in the history. Such as when Fortunato can be suffering from a cough and upon getting into the vaults has a abrupt coughing in shape after which montressor requests that they can leave nevertheless fortunate insists that; ‘the cough’s only nothing; investment decision you won’t kill me.
I will not die of your cough’. This can be seen as foreshadowing his upcoming, true he will not perish of a cough, but he will probably die in these vaults. In the black feline Poe uses irony in the very first section, ‘mere household events’ whenever we know that they are clearly far from mere home events. Poe also uses personification; one of the most rhetorical is definitely when he personifies the liquor to give this another level and it will also offer ‘someone’ accountable his irrational behaviour upon. The use of paradox is visible when the narrator reveals that his initially cats name was Pluto, who, in Greek mythology, is the lord of the underworld.
This could as well tap into the supernatural element of the tale that could be the reason for the narrator’s physical downfall. Poe uses the technique of rhetorical questions to probe on the reader and leave an unanswered problem in the visitors head. Including; ‘who has not, a hundred moments, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for not any other purpose that because he knows he should not? ‘. This particular rhetorical question is simply talking about this kind of perverse part in everybody and about standard human nature, which can be something that we can all relate to since readers and may also, become the narrator trying to justify his actions as part of every day human nature.
Poe’s vocabulary is very vicious, emotive and demonic, such as ‘demons’, ‘exhault’, ‘damned’ and ‘agony’. These emotive words play on the thoughts and are greater than just usual descriptive words. Once again, just like the Cask, intensity is created and built through the story, and both have foreshadowing, symbolism and good diction.
An example of foreshadowing in the black cat may be the narrator’s hallucination of the gallows appearing in his second cat’s fur, this might be foreshadowing a death that he could be associated with including himself. The last category I will be assessing and contrasting is topics in the experience. In the cask Poe is exploring several themes, such as the falling of moral restrictions at the time of carnivals and their effects, such as criminal offenses. Poe is merely using this extremity to show this kind of. Revenge is likewise another motif explored in this tale and again this is an extremity to exhibit that.
It is additionally to explore the narrator’s state of mind and to entertain someone. In the black cat Poe explores the idea that everyone has a perverse aspect and uses this extremity to show that. Like the cask, it also explores the narrator’s state of mind and entertain someone.
