Know the Action before the Action

Essay by jhawk88Junior High, 8th gradeA, November 2014

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Knowing the Action before the Action

The mood of stories may be conveyed in different ways. A review of three of Edgar Allen Poe's stories-The Cask of Monticello, The Masque of Red Death and The Fall of the House of Usher shows how Poe sets the mood of plot in his stories. Poe conveys the mood of the plot in his stories through his description of the setting. Poe uses descriptive settings in each of these stories to paint an eerie, dark, gloomy and deadly picture. Poe sets the mood before the plot takes place.

In the Cask of Monticello, Poe conveys a dark and evil mood through his description of the setting. Poe gives us the general mood when he says "It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season" (Poe 214). Although Poe says that Montresor hates Fortunato and seeks revenge for his insults, Montresor doesn't let him know that he hates him.

Poe tells where Montresor is tricking Fortunato into taking him saying "I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors" (215-216). Poe wrote "We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs" (217 ). The mood is set by describing these underground tunnels and rooms so you can feel the eerie dark, wet, rotting human skeletons. Poe also says "the nitre caused Fortunato to cough constantly" (216). This created a...