Edgar Allen Poe…Gothic?

Edgar Allen Poe…Gothic?

Edgar Allen Poe throughout his time has mastered the art of Gothic writing. His writing usually included in them horrors, mystery, and suspense. A few of his Gothic elements may include high emotion, use of words signifying fear and mystery, or even supernatural events. There are two stories that Poe wrote with some examples of these Gothic traits: “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death”.

In one of Poe’s stories, “The Tell Tale Heart”, Poe expresses a couple of the Gothic traits such as Gothic themes, the protagonist, and the symbols of Goth. The Gothic theme in this story when a man’s true nature is revealed in extreme situations. The narrator is outside the old man’s window and picks up his lantern and shines the light onto the old man’s eye that is what has aggravating him so much. The narrator hated the old man’s “vulture” eye. “So I opened it- you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily- until, at length, a single dim ray, like a threads of a spider, shot from the crevice and full upon the vulture eye” (15). There is a protagonist in the story who is usually insane or is very close to it, and it was the narrator. He would always think he was hearing the old man’s heart beating. He always noticed if it got faster or if it got louder, but we soon realized that, it was his own heart beat because he was so nervous. “It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant” (15). A symbol of a Gothic characteristic in this story is when the narrator is going crazy when he thinks he hears the old man’s heart beat when it is actually his own. “It grew louder every moment!” (15).

In another one of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories, “The Masque of The Red Death”, Poe expresses a few other Gothic traits then in “The Tell-Tale Heart” such as mental torture, the setting, and presence of the supernatural. The Gothic traits, mental torture and the presence of the supernatural are both represented when Prince Prospero is running through the hallways with a dagger in his hand and when