Edgar Allan Poe (on mood-death,torture and insanity)

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet and storywriter. He is known for his strong elements of mood in his work such as death, torture, and insanity. Some of his works that display this predominant mood are "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Raven", and "The Tell-Tale Heart".

The story "The Pit and the Pendulum" shows a strong mood of torture. The story is about a person who is put in a torture chamber because of his religion. In the story he is tied to a table and a pendulum is swung over his body. When it gets close, it goes back up to where it started just to torture the man. This story's mood puts a dark and torturous illustration in the reader's mind.

In Poe's poem, "The Raven", there is a predominant mood of death. The poem is about a man who is visited by a raven from the underworld.

English: The cover of the literary annual The Gift...

pendulum

Poe Cottage (LOC)

At first he thinks the raven is "Lenore" coming back from the dead. The man says "Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!", which means he wants to know what is going to happen to him when he dies. Because of this, story gives a gloomy picture of death to the reader

In the short story, "Tell Tale Heart", a man kills an elderly man because of his blue, vulture-like eye. The narrator tries to prove himself sane to the reader while telling the story. He says "It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bead. Ha!- would a madman have been so wise as this?" Because he tries so hard to prove himself sane to the reader, it...