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Characteristics of Edgar Poe’s short stories
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2.5 Characteristics of Edgar Poe’s short stories
“Tales of Groteque and Arabesque” his first collection of short stories Edgar Poe titled “Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque”. The title of the work makes the reader enter the field of fantasy, created by the writer. Edgar Poe’s stories are Grotesque and Arabesque indeed. As W. Shakespeare said “who will name the child by his right name”, whether he is a man or a work of art? Evidently, it is the child’s parent or author who is able to do it best, when we speak about the work of art. But both the parent and the author has not only the nation of the child they produced, but their own mysterious idea, their own wish, and their own hopes. Groteque and Arabesque – is an exact name, but it is more the outward appearance, the way and manner than the gist of the phenomenon. Some authors and critics call Edgar Poe’s stories “horrible” ones. But we can certainly call them “tales of mystery and horror”
The famous Russian writer M. Dostoevsky, said about Edgar Poe’s “strangeness” his Grotesque and Arabesque: “If is Edgar Poe, who is extremely strange, though with the great talent”. Sometimes it seems that this or that Poe’s grotesque was written in the traditional spirit of Gothic novel, in spirit of genre of “mystery and horror” and then it occurs that it is parady to him. The real example of this is the story “Sfinx”:
A man came from New York to the place of his relative and lives in a separate comfortable cottage on the bank of Gudzon River. One day, on the sunset of a hot day, he was sitting at the open window, which overlooked the beautiful bank of the river and the distant hillside. And suddenly he saw there something incredible awful monster descending fast from the top and soon disappear in the thick forest at the foot. If was a huge monster, and the most surprising thing was the picture of its “skull scarily of half of a chest” Before it disappeared, it had uttered “unexplainable sorrowful” sound, and the man, who was telling the story, bell on the ground without feeling. The story about mystery and horror, and at the same time at the next page exposure of “the trick”, that is the explanation: how such an awful monster appeared before the story-teller. It occurred that it was only some kind of an insect “sfinx dead head”, which inspired the people superstitious horror with its sad squeaking and also with the emblem of death on its chest.
The insect got into a cobweb, which was made by a spider behind the window and the eyes of the sitting man at the window, designed it to the bold slope of a distant hill.
“Fear has large eyes”, the image of the monster illusion created by the psychological state of the story-teller, sharpened with the horror the epidemic of cholera was being rife in New York, “the disaster was spreading” and “in the wind itself, when it was flowing from the South. . . a stinking breath of death was imagined” (The real event of the beginning of 30y of the 19th century was reflected in “sfinx” it was the epidemic of cholera in New York, spread in Europe. )
“Sfinx” is both “a horrible “ story and a parody, there is essential for Edgar Poe motive of the social satire expressed, as though by the way, in the sharp form of appreciating the real American democracy. The story teller’s relative, whose “serious philosophical mind was far away from fantasy” pointed out the idea, that the investigation mistakes come from human mentality to underestimate or to overestimate the importance of the object which was investigated because of wrong defining his distant. For instance, he said in order to value in a right way the influence, which the real democracy may have on the humanity, it’s necessary to take into consideration for how long distance the epoch when we may carry out this influence. Dostoevsky pointed out one peculiars feature in Edgar Poe, which differs him from other writers it is his power of imagination.
There is one peculiar feature in his imagination, which we never have met in other writers the power to describe everything in full details, which is able to make the reader believe the possibility of event even if it is impossible or has never happened yet. His power of imagination made Edgar Poe mystification widely the reader with great success. The example of such mystification is Edgar Poe’s “Story with Air Ball” in which the fiction about the flight of the air ball from Europe to America turned out to be so real, that it challenged sensation. Edgar Poe could tell about the state of human soul with surprising power, very often the soul full of horror, which Edgar Poe felt himself.
Edgar Poe is the creator of wonderful satirical grotesque in which he laughed at unchangeable and impatient for him human defects. The action of the story “Four beast in one” (1836) takes place in bible time, but the ideas expressed by the author is modern. Poe describes satirically cowardice and nonentity of the evilest and the basest characteristic. He opposes the wild whims and cruelty of despots, the intentions of cretins to humiliate and insult human dignity of surrenders and his own too. The most characteristic that wild despots are presented in Edgar Poe’s story in beasts’ masks.
The American “businessman” in Poe’s description is a self-satisfied blockhead and nonentity; he hates gifted and talented people. The author picked carefully comic details while creating the grotesque image of a businessman.
Poe’s comic scope is very wide from ruthless satirical grotesque to soft and inoffensive humor. There are much vigor and reckless and high spirits in Poe’s comic stories; a smart joke makes dance even 80-years old of aged old woman.
Horrible stories.
Poe published over seventy short stories in his short life. His best short stories deal with either logical reasoning, as in his defective stories, or terror, as is the case of “The Cask Of Amontillado”.
Poe’s tales of terror are perhaps, more widely known to the general reader than his defective stories.
Poe’s short narrative prose style as found in the two categories characteristic of his fiction has widely influenced the form and purpose of the short story, not only in the United States, but also around the world.
“The Cask of Amontillado” (Together with “The Tell –Tale Heart”) best illustrates Poe’s terror stories and the clarify with which he develops his own method. Every word in his short story contributes towards the single effect of terror which the story conveys. To these two stories we also may add “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839). The story is a portrait of a suffering artist isolated from the tides of life. Subtle psychological meanings can also be found in “Ligea”, “the Black Cat”, and “William Wilson”. In all these tales, bizarre and frightening details and events conceal Poe’s subtle probing of the warfare he observed in the human soul.
In “The Cask of Amontillado” we may recognize the actual experiences of Poe. From the first Edgar Poe story a person reads, the seed is planted that grown into the question of whether or not the author was as twisted as his stories. Historical accounts of the man and his life show that he was raised by the Allan family after his parents death and historical accounts present him as being brought up in a series of private schools and relative comfort. He was a gambler, a heavy drinker, and an alleged drug addict. He was what would have been referred to in the Victorian age as a near-do-well.
In his stories “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” Edgar Poe analyze with the great exactness the change of killer’s psychology, that reckless moving from wild gladness to indescribable fear and despair. The author describes the awful scenes of murder without any secrets and not concealing all details.
Here now, let’s observe the scene of murder, which the teller had planned before hand in the story “The Tell-Tale Heart”. The teller wasn’t a mad man, because a mad man cannot plan. The whole week he had fun truing to kill his victim and only on the eighth day he did it.
“During all that week \was as friendly to the old man as \could be and warm, and loving.
Every night about twelve o’clock slowly opened his door. And when the door was opened wide enough put my hand in and then my head. In my hand \held a light covered over with a cloth so that no light showed. And I stood there quietly. Then carefully, I lifted the cloth, just a little, so that a single, then small light fell across that eye. For seven night\did this, seven long nights, every night at midnight. Always the eye was closed, so it was impossible for me to do the work. For it , it was not the old man I felt I had to kill; it was the eye, his Evil Eye. And every morning \went to his room, and with a warm, friendly voice \ asked him how he had slept. He cold not guess that every night, just at twelve, I looked in at him as he slept.
The eighth night I was more than usually careful as I opened the door. The hands of a clock move more quickly than did my hand. Never before had \felt so strongly my own power; I was now sure of success.
The old man was lying there no dreaming that I was at his door. Suddenly he moved in his bed. You may think I became afraid. But no. The darkness in his room was thick and black. I knew he could not see the opening of the door. I continued to push the door, slowly, softly. I put in my hand, with the covered light. Suddenly the old man sat straight up in bed and cried, “who’s there???!”
I stood quite still. For a whole hour \did not move. Nor did hear him again he down in his bed. He just sat there, listening. Then \heard a sound, a low cry of fear which escaped from the old man. Now \ knew that he was sitting up in his bed, filled with fear; I knew that he knew that I was there. He did not see me there. He could not hear me there. He felt me there. Now he knew that Death was standing there.
Slowly little by little, I lifted the cloth, until a small, small light escaped from under it to small light escaped from under it to fall upon – light escaped from under eye! It was open wide, wide open, and my anger increased as it looked straight at me. I could not see the old man’s face. Only that eye, that hard blue eye, and the blood in my body became like ice.
Have I not told you that my hearing had become unusually strong? Now I could hear a quick, low soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall. It was beating of the old man’s heart. I tired to stand quietly. But the sound grew louder. The old man’s fear must have been great indeed. And as the sound grew louder my anger became greater and more painful. But it was more than anger. In the quite night, in the dark silence of the bedroom my anger became fear for the heart was beating so loudly that I was sure some one must hear. The time had come! I rushed into the room crying “Die! Die!” The old man gave a loud cry of fear as I fell upon him and held the bedcovers tightly over his head. Still his heart was beating; but I smiled as I felt that success was near. For many minutes that heart continued to beat. I took away the bed-covers and held my ear over his heart. There was no sound. Yes he was dead! Dead as a stone. His eye would trouble me no more![3] But the process of murder wasn’t over yet. The author describes how cruelty the killer dealt with the dead body of the old. He wrote: “You should have seem how careful I was to put the body where no one could find it. First I cut off the head, then the arms and the legs. I was careful not to let a single drop of blood fall on the floor. I pulled up three of the boards that formed the floor, and put the pieces of the body there. Then I put the boards down again, carefully, so carefully that no human eye could see that they had been moved”[4] The killer thought that nobody would know about the murder, he was glad, that he wouldn’t be punished, but was his fear and horror that were the threat of revealing the murder. And that happened: “ My head hurt and there was a strange sound in my ears. I talked more, and faster. The sound became clearer” suddenly I knew that the sound was not in my ears, it was just inside my head. At that moment I must have become quite white. I talked still faster and louder. And the sound too became louder. I was a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock hear through a wall, a sound I knew well. Louder, louder, I stood up and walked quickly around the room I pushed my chair across the floor to make more noise, to cover that terrible sound. I talked even louder. And still the men sat and talked, and smiled. What it possible that they could not hear?
No! They heard! I was certain of it. They knew! Now it was they who were playing a game with me. I was suffering more than I could fear, from their smiles, and from that sound louder, louder, and louder. Suddenly I could fear it no longer. I pointed at the boards and cried, “Yes! Yes, I killed him. Pull up the boards and you shall see! I killed him. But why does his heart not stop beating? Why does it not stop!?”
The same pages of made murder we can see in the story “The Cat of Amontillado”. The main character of the story decided to kill his friend if we may say so, named Fortunato, because he as the hero said “had hurt him a thousand times and he suffered quietly.” So, he promised himself that he would make him pay for that, that would have revenge. Fortunato was a strong man, a man to be feared but he had one great weakness; he liked to drink good wine; and indeed he drank much of it. It happened, once that our hero met him in the street and he decided to treat him the wine Amantillado, and then to make his horrible murder, he took him to very strange and horrible place, where were only cold stone walls and terrible darkness.
It was really a very terrible place. “Fortunato looked uncertainly around him, trying to see through the thick darkness which pushed in around us. Here our brightly burning lights seemed weak indeed. But our eyes soon became used to the darkness. We could see the bones of the dead lying in the large piles along the walls. The stones of the walls were wet and cold” [5] In this terrible place our hero killed Fortunato. He bricked up him with stones, at last he head revenge, and again that fear accompanied the killer: “I heard no answer. Fortunato” I cried “Fortunato”. I heard only a soft, low sound, a half-cry of fear. My heart grew sick; it must have been the cold. I hurried to force the last stone into its position. And I put the old bones again in a pile against the wall. For half a century now no human hand has touched them. May he rest in peace!
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