When protagonists in a eerie ambience immediately turn to fear when they are confronted with conflicts, it provides them with beneficial ways as the key to survival. Terror is given to humans as a survival instinct to offer constraint to detain from having coherent thoughts. Although, what also comes from fear is paranoia that fogs all judicious thoughts and causes society to be paralyzed and disabled to use the beneficial sides to the uneasiness. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Masque of Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe informs us of the leading characters face to face encounters with fear. Poe uses symbolism, irony, and imagery to give us a picture of how fear blurs the character’s minds and causes over
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Dreading every time he has to see the eye, the narrator struggles against his fears to keep his sanity. The eye’s haunting and judgement influences the narrator’s mind to an excessive amount by blurring the line between sanity and insanity, and causes the narrator to tip over to the insane side. Over-obsession of the dread causes the narrator to fracture the morality in his mind and resort to eliminate the cause of his anxiety. However, when the old man is deceased, the haunting increases and guilt gets combined with it. The narrator’s mind, now filled with an aberrant amount of emotional excess, gradually gets clouded and he can’t find the right way to mortality anymore. Although, the effects from the symbols in “The Masque of Red Death,” seem to have analogous repercussions. For example, “ . . . there strikes the ebony clock. . .and then for a moment, all is still, and all is silent. . .The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. . .And now again the music swells, and the …show more content…
Poe represents this in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” to show readers the reality of evil within. The old man’s room was “as black as pitch with the thick darkness ( for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers). . .” (75). Having affluence, the old man attempts to prevent burglars from getting into his house. Although, the irony in this is that he is trying to ostracize malicious people from him but the evil is already inside. This then causes fear of this evil which increases the old man’s alertness and vigilance. However, when the old man also becomes afraid of the approaching death, it has an extensive chain reaction. The result is him trapping himself inside with the evil that is already within and leads him to his own death. He cannot avoid death due to death’s inevitability and inability to be tricked or cheated. Notwithstanding, the Prince is seen to have a similar mindset in “The Masque of Red Death.” Poe states, “ . . .retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. . .welded the bolts. . .With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself” (57). Selfishly, the Prince isolated himself and some of his companions in his castle to avoid the inescapable Red Death. Ironically, the Red Death was still able to enter the castle no matter how strongly the Prince fought to exclude it. The Prince had allowed
Dreading every time he has to see the eye, the narrator struggles against his fears to keep his sanity. The eye’s haunting and judgement influences the narrator’s mind to an excessive amount by blurring the line between sanity and insanity, and causes the narrator to tip over to the insane side. Over-obsession of the dread causes the narrator to fracture the morality in his mind and resort to eliminate the cause of his anxiety. However, when the old man is deceased, the haunting increases and guilt gets combined with it. The narrator’s mind, now filled with an aberrant amount of emotional excess, gradually gets clouded and he can’t find the right way to mortality anymore. Although, the effects from the symbols in “The Masque of Red Death,” seem to have analogous repercussions. For example, “ . . . there strikes the ebony clock. . .and then for a moment, all is still, and all is silent. . .The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. . .And now again the music swells, and the …show more content…
Poe represents this in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” to show readers the reality of evil within. The old man’s room was “as black as pitch with the thick darkness ( for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers). . .” (75). Having affluence, the old man attempts to prevent burglars from getting into his house. Although, the irony in this is that he is trying to ostracize malicious people from him but the evil is already inside. This then causes fear of this evil which increases the old man’s alertness and vigilance. However, when the old man also becomes afraid of the approaching death, it has an extensive chain reaction. The result is him trapping himself inside with the evil that is already within and leads him to his own death. He cannot avoid death due to death’s inevitability and inability to be tricked or cheated. Notwithstanding, the Prince is seen to have a similar mindset in “The Masque of Red Death.” Poe states, “ . . .retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. . .welded the bolts. . .With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself” (57). Selfishly, the Prince isolated himself and some of his companions in his castle to avoid the inescapable Red Death. Ironically, the Red Death was still able to enter the castle no matter how strongly the Prince fought to exclude it. The Prince had allowed