EDGAR ALLAN POE

MAIN FEATURES

Stories are short because they must be read in one seat, not to break up tension

Frequent use of the first-person narrator that gives the reader the partial and subjective point of view of the main character

Characters are not physically well-defined (absence of information about names, age, jobs, settings, etc). The focus is on their emotional condition

Presence of some kind of illness (mental or physical), phobia, obsession, or “a morbid acuteness of the senses”

Stories are mainly set inside, often in mansions or castles (Gothic feature), but usually the crucial action takes place in small spaces (turrets, cellars, small rooms)

Claustrophobic situations, both physical (The Pit and the Pendulum) and mental (The Tell-Tale Heart). Characters are either imprisoned in cells, tombs, etc or in their own obsessions

Evil often derives from some disease and sometimes becomes perversion ( Madeleine and Roderick’s incestuous relationship in “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Stories are highly emotional and cannot be approached by means of rationality

Plots are characterised by insoluble mysteries, hallucinations, nightmares

Continuous blurring of the real and the fantastic, mixing inexplicable events and logical facts

Stories contain the main Gothic elements: haunted house, dreary landscape, mysterious sickness, doubled personality