The Fall of the House of Usher

Gothic spirit nonetheless continued to hang-out and encourage the fiction and works of such important writers as the Bronte sisters like Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and even the famous social writers like Charles Dickens in his Bleak House and Great Expectations. In the second half of the 20 th century, the time period changed into implemented to paperback romances having the equal sort of issues and trappings similar to the…

Gloomy, dreary, creepy, forbidding, dark, horror, and fear, are all words that describe gothic literature. Gothic literature is something that the writer Edgar Allan Poe has much knowledge about, for he has written many gothic short stories and poems. Such as the short stories like, “The Black Cat”, “Tell Tale Heart”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, and “Masque of the Red Death”. Also displayed in his poems, “Alone”, “Annabel Lee”, “The Raven”, and somewhat of “The Bells”. To a great extent, Edgar…

Gothic fiction is one of the most intriguing and captivating, if not most popular, literary genres for a reason. Branded mainly by the elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, this style of writing, whose name derives from the dark and decaying gothic architecture and art, is also rich in romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and sentiment. Originated in England in the second half of the 18th century, the gothic fiction has spread its popularity across continental Europe by the…

Conventional versus contemporary. Paranormal versus verism. Charles Dickens’ “The Signalman” and Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter”, two pieces of Gothic prose, are different yet, in various ways, similar. Written with the creation of suspense and tension in mind, both stories are tied with a common theme of insanity. One of the ways that the two writers create suspense is by utilising the description of the setting and the themes. Dickens reiterates the words “gloomy” and “dark” as well as…

Have you ever been so sure about a certain ending of a story and then the narrator turns everything upside down in a blink of an eye? Then, you have certainly tasted the purest form of fiction’s beauty, which is the “plot twist”. Plot twists are those sudden unexpected turns in the stories that reveal significant details beyond them; some of the plot twists can be foreshadowed by several hints throughout the story, while others are totally unexpectable. Among numerous fiction stories, there are…

Cat” a man loves animals as much as alcohol and physically abusing his wife. He suddenly grows a strange desire to torture his pet cat, Pluto. The author portrayed the author as a lunatic in a creepy yet intense tone who abuses his cat in his own house. Meanwhile his wife doesn’t show sign of care towards her husband’s actions. The actions he performs are cruel and is expected for a man who abuses his wife and alcohol. What really allows us to comprehend the…

Jarmusch’s film Dead Man (1995) is the departure from a typical western genre turned postmodern shown through cinematic qualities that emphasize a surreal feel and dream-like state throughout. The film is shot in black and white and follows the narrative tale of William Blake (Johnny Depp) a man wanted for the murder of a wealthy mans’ son, after he shot him dead in defense on his first night in the western town named Machine. Blake is met by an out casted Native American who goes by the name…

Throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s life, he has gone through many harsh experiences, such as losing his mom and wife to Tuberculosis, which is the basis for his great stories. Poe’s goal is to leave the reader with an emotional effect of the horror of premeditated death and the sadness over the death of a loved one after reading his stories. These emotional effects are show in “The Tale-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “Hop-Frog,” “The Raven,” and “ Annabel Lee.” Edgar Allan Poe’s style is…

In reading The Rocking-Horse Winner and How to Read Literature Like a Professor, an overarching similarity between these two works can be seen with the presence of a type of ghost in the household (as described by the third chapter in Foster’s work). This ghost deviates from the traditional definition and represents that which is ubiquitous in contemporary, as well as past, life. Foster describes ghosts as ideas or acts that weigh down upon characters and “haunt” them, so to speak. The ghost in…

In the story the Tell-Tell Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator commits a crime. What was it you may be asking? Well let’s just say it got a little messy… The narrator had committed a murder crime by killing the Old Man that lived in the same house as him. Really creepy right, and this is how it happened. This is all based on revenge, but not how you would think. The Old Man and the narrator had a good relationship, and you are probably wondering why he wants revenge, but the Old Man has a…