Snake Eyes | Techniques/Literary Precedents
Given her grounding in realistic fiction and her fascination with the obsessed or disintegrating mind, it is quite in keeping with her work that Oates has chosen to write a series of thrillers. She wants these to be popular novels, thus she writes linear, suspenseful plots that build tension by slowly increasing the level of madness in the characters. Precedents for Oates's techniques include Edgar Allan Poe's madmen in stories like "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843), "The Black Cat" (1843), and "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), and Henry James's invaded children in "The Turn of the Screw"...
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