Gothic Horror
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous American writers, editors, and literary critics. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. The “Black Cat” is about a crazy man who torchers his cat and ends up killing it but the cat comes back to haunt him. The “Masque of The Red death” is about a terrible disease that has struck the country but no one seems to care. He decides to let the kingdom take care of itself while he and a thousand of his favorite knights and ladies shut themselves up in a fabulous castle to have a party. After the last guest enters, no one else can get in the Prince has welded the doors shut. That means no one can get out. Anyways when the clock …show more content…
In this scene, Poe’s character came home very intoxicated. The cat was frightened by him and bit him. The man became very upset with the cat and deliberately cut one of the cats eyes from its socket. Poe explains in his story that the man, “ Took from his waistcoat a penknife grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket”(Poe 5). Poe demonstrates the insanity by showing that he deliberately cut one of the eyeballs out of his cat just for biting him and the fact that he had no sympathy for the cat. Secondly, Poe’s story shows another element of gothic literature, which is an apparition. In one scene, the man had hung the cat and his house burnt down later that night. Then early that morning when he was visiting the damage, an apparition of the cat appeared on the wall of the cat with a noose tied around its neck. Poe talks about how the man, “approached and saw, as if graven in bas-relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. There was a rope about the animal's neck. When I first saw this apparition, my wonder and terror were extreme”(Poe 10). The cat really isn't there, it comes back more in a spiritual form which frightens then man. Poe shows the gothic characteristics of this story by showing an apparition of the dead cat with a noose around its neck as well as insanity when he cut out the cat’s …show more content…
In one scene “ The Red Death” had killed Prospero and at midnight would kill someone. A character says, “The Red Death held illimitable dominion over all”(Poe 6). Poe was saying death is a greater power than anyone and it cannot be avoided. It will end up happening. Poe was drawing attention to the fact that death cannot be stopped and everyone will die, no matter how hard try. The same sence when the clock struck midnight and the masked figure killed Prospero, where he drew attention to the power of death though the story was when he stated, “And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay (Poe 6).” As the people died, the clock ticked down and eventually stopped once the last person had died. Poe was focusing on the gothic element of death by showing it was too powerful to stop and everything comes to an