Analysis in Edgar Allan Poe's tales

When we covered Edgar Allan Poe, we discovered that in his stories he is concerned with the disintegration of the self. He constructs his narration reconstructing reality. He is against the tradition, he is concerned with subjectivity, the inner perversity that comes out and transforms into language. However he has written more than tales, I would like to show you three examples of the three categories of his tales (the analytic tales, the ratiocination tales and the synthetic tales (the last one was my favorite)).

Firstly, I would like to start with The Black Cat that belongs to the Analytic tales. The Black Cat was firstly published in 1843 and is considered one of the best tales of Poe because it portrays the story of a honorable man who has many pets, but his favorite is his cat Pluto. Due to the influence of alcohol he starts to suffer from mood swings what causes him being violent with his wife and his pets. One day he believes his cat Pluto has avoided him so he starts to annoying him until it bites his hand and as revenge he cuts its eye with a knife. The next day he feels guilty, but his sense of perverseness makes him hang on a tree to his cat. We can call it karma, but his house burns down, and after that he sees an impression of a cat on the surface of the wall.

One day, a similar cat appears in his house remember him Pluto, he feels a deep love for this cat, but he cannot resist the feeling of hatred for the cat. So, one day he wants to kill it, but his wife tries to protect it, bad luck for her, he feels anger and kill her. Furthermore, without regret, he entombs the body behind the walls. Four days later, the police appears in his house, but he does not feel nervous or anything, he shows his place, even he shows where his wife's body is. The police does know seem to notice any abnormality. He talks with the police about the solidness of the walls and when he taps the walls, suddenly a loud cry emanates from the wall. Then, the police discovers the body and the cat appears.

In the analytic tales Poe tries to put his characters into very difficult situations. Which invites you into the sensations and the feelings of the characters. His characters are the proof that sensations become into madness. He creates the most horrific stories and puts the character in horrific situations. Sensations increase in intensity until the fear invades the reader. I had to say that when I first read The Black Cat, I got really afraid about cats, every time I looked at my cat I got scared of it. I was impressed by the way Poe wrote this tale in the sense that he really made me feel scare about this man who killed his wife without regret because he had this sordid feeling of revenge without reason. INSANE.

On the other hand we have the Ratiocination tales which start with a situation of abnormality, a complex crime has been committed and there is a need for a rational solution to get a natural explanation. For example, in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, a unknown narrator tells the story of a murder in the Rue Morgue (Paris). Neighbors of the two women say they heard a voice, but they do not agree on how was the voice like. Eventually, Le Bon, a bank clerk that in the past was related to Madame L'Espanaye (the woman attacked and killed) was arrested. This lead Dupin and the narrator, who share a deep power of analysis, to investigate this case. At the beginning, Dupin suggests that the atrocity of the murder has interfered in the real killer of this murder. Dupin uses his analytic power to make hypothesis of what has really happen. Eventually he discovers that the murderer was an Ourang-Outang.

Dupin is the person in charge of the rational explanations of this mysterious murder. This situation of abnormality brings the police, that is not capable of discover the real murderer. Duplin discovers the rational solution to get the natural explanation. He uses the intellect not the imagination to solve the problem.

And finally, The Fall of the House of Usher belongs to the synthetic tales because it shows the story of a unknown narrator that receives a letter from his friend Roderick asking for his company, when the narrator goes to Roderick Usher's house, he describes it as mysterious house. He finally meets his old friend who seems to suffer from his senses and his sister Madeleine also suffers from an strange condition that seems to be catalepsy, that is irreversible. The narrator spends time with his old friend Roderick at his house trying to cheer him up. One day Madeleine dies and Roderick decides to keep her in a tomb in his house. The narrator realizes that her cheeks are still red and that Roderick and Madeleine were twins. Roderick starts to become more and more ill until one day they are reading “Mad Trist” by Sir Launcelot Canning and they realize that while he reads, all the descriptions correspond to the sounds they are actually hearing. Roderick confesses that he has probably buried his sister alive and that she is yelling because she is trying to escape. After that, Roderick sees his sister in front of the door and he dies of fear. Naturally, the narrator escapes running from the house and as he escapes the house starts to destroy.

I have to admit that this story was my favorite because it was the most terrifying of the ones I read. It creates a situation in which Poe adds the presence of the supernatural, that in this case is depicted in the house and in this weird connection that Roderick and Madeleine have. This story is not just the end of the Ushers, also is the disintegration of the sense of reality. The house was connected with the siblings. Poe writes about horror by scrutinizing the ideas that seem real, but the more we advance in the story the more they become unreal. I mean, who has not feared of being left in a coffin being alive?

Reference

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Black Cat. Charlottesville, Va.: U of Virginia Library, 1843. Print

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales. Champaign, Ill.: Project Gutenberg, 1839. Print.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Charlottesville, Va.: U of Virginia Library, 1841. Print.

Woodson, Thomas. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Fall of the House of Usher; a Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Print.