What similarities exist in Edgar Allan Poe's stories?

In his essay "The Importance of a Single Effect in a Prose Tale," Poe writes that he unifies a piece of writing around mood. He writes not primarily to develop a plot or a character but to convey a feeling or what he calls an "effect."

Most often in his stories, Poe wishes to convey a mood or "effect" of horror. He does this through description and imaginative details that relentlessly build up a sense of unsettling terror. For example, in "The Cask of Amontillado," the reader's awareness that Montresor is plotting revenge and the piling up of creepy details about the cold, damp, bone-filled catacombs through which he leads Fortunato builds a mounting sense of tension and deep unease. Similarly, the ebony clock that stops everyone cold when it ominously tolls the hour in "The Masque of the Red Death," reminding people of their mortality in the middle of a deadly plague, contributes to a sense of horror.

Poe also tightens his effects by using a claustrophobic writing style focused on very few characters and often narrated by a person who is troubled or unstable. Poe sometimes horrifies us by putting us into contact with a fevered mind trying to justify its heinous actions, as in "The Tell-tale Heart," or with a claustrophobic nightmare setting, such as that described by the first-person narrator of "The Pit and the Pendulum."

Further, Poe's stories are alike in being startlingly imaginative and original. As you read, you wonder what kind of mind could be so dark and daring as to imagine cutting the eye out of a black cat, envision a giant razor sharp pendulum cutting a person in two while rats swarm around his food, or describe a house disintegrating and sinking in a tarn when its very strange owner dies?

Poe's stories stand out, despite imitators, as being like nobody else's. You are seldom likely to read one of his stories and then later wonder, who wrote that one? You can't help but remember him because of the vivid impact of his effects.

Edgar Allan Poe is recognized as the father of the mystery story and also the horror story in American Literature.  Poe's life held so much unhappiness that is it not surprising that he chose to write about the type of characters who killed, maimed, and suffered.

From his parents' early deaths to his adopted father disowning him, Poe seemed to have to search for love and security for the rest of his life.  His life appears to have been one struggle after another, culminating in the abuse of drugs and alcohol. 

His most famous stories are familiar to most American literature students:

"The Cask of Amontillado"

"The Fall of the House of Usher"

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

"The Black Cat" 

These rank among the great short stories in literature.

What did Poe's stories have in common?

Mental Illness

Most of Poe's stories examines a psychological problem in one of the main characters.  Many times, it is the narrator or main character that is battling mental illness.

• Montresor is obsessed with reeking revenge.
• Roderick Usher is so mentally ill that his senses have become unbearably painful.
• The nameless murderer in "The Tell-Tale Heart" kills an innocent man because of his vulture eye. 
• The nameless murderer in "The Black Cat" kills a cat and his innocent wife.

Most of his narrators spend the story trying to convince the reader that they are not insane.

Limited Number of Characters

There are usually a limited number of characters in the stories.  The main exception to this is "The Masque of Red Death." However, there are only two characters that really count in the story: Prince Prospero and the Red Death.

Death Is the Theme

His stories usually have the element of death as a part of the theme of the story.  Just be aware that someone is not going to make it through the story.

• Montresor kills Fortunato.
• Roderick unknowingly buries his sister alive. He dies himself at the end of the story.
• The narrator smothers the old man to death in "The Tell-Tale Heart."
• The narrator buries an axe in the head of his wife and hangs his beloved cat, Pluto from a tree in the yard.
• Everyone dies in "The Masque of Red Death."

The Settings

Most of the settings are in the person's home.

• Montresor takes Fortunato to his home and the catacombs underneath.
• Roderick's story circulates around his house and its collapse at the end of the story.
• The narrator kills the old man in the house that belongs to the old man.
• The narrator in "The Black Cat" kills his wife in the cellar of their home.

Alcohol and Drugs

Most of the main characters have an abuse problem.

• Fortunato is drunk when he is lured to his death.
• Roderick takes drugs for his disease.

The writer spoke of acute bodily illness--of a mental disorder which oppressed him...

• The killer in "The Black Cat" admits to abusing alcohol.

When reason returned with the morning – when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch – I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty...

Humor

The only story that I find any humor in is "The Cask of Amontillado" and Poe's use of irony.  The foolish Fortunato says so many stupid things that his character is humorous as well.

Although there are many commonalities in Poe's stories, each one has its own flavor, interesting characters, and approach to the grotesque.  If anyone is in the mood for a delicious, macabre story, the fabulous Poe is the writer to read.

What are the characteristics of Edgar Allan Poe's works?

Poe is heavy on the symbolism, and he often repeats symbol use from one story to the next. For example, in "The Masque of the Red Death," when an ebony clock housed in a black and blood-red room strikes midnight, all the revelers at the masquerade stop and tremble in fear, as though they fear their own mortality. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator spies on the old man with whom he lives just at midnight every night for a week, waiting for the opportune moment to kill him. He even confesses to often being awake at that hour himself, listening to the deathwatch beetles ticking in the walls and groaning in "mortal terror." We soon learn that he, too, fears his own death and must rid himself of the old man because the old man is, himself, a reminder of the narrator's own mortality. In both stories, midnight, as the death of day, is symbolic of mortality, as is the clock and the color black from "Masque." This color symbolism resurfaces in Poe's poem "The Raven," because the raven is black and also signifies our mortality and the inevitability of death. You can see, even just from these few examples, that Poe also often takes mortality as a major theme of his writing.

Edgar Allen Poe is an old master of mystery, suspense, and horror, and his command of the literary Gothic style is well-known. His short stories often contain themes about death and decay, as well as mental instability and emotional crisis. Poe's settings are often creepy and intimidating and are all the more haunting for their isolation; characters who are in trouble in these settings are even more vulnerable for their distance from anyone who could help them. Also, many of Poe's characters are coping with the instability that comes with the death or near-death of someone else. The tone of Poe's stories are often morose and dark, and sometimes, supernatural elements enhance the mysteriousness of the setting and the suspensefulness of the narration.

What stylistic elements characterize Edgar Allan Poe's writing?

Edgar Allan Poe is primarily known for his achievements with short stories, poetry, and literary criticism, and he was extremely influential in shaping later generations of writers, and even entire genres of fiction. Consider, for example, the character of C. Auguste Dupin, which laid the foundation for the entire detective genre (influencing later literary creations such as Sherlock Holmes).

Stylistically speaking, Poe showed a mastery of first person narration, as well as of unreliable narration. Generally speaking, the great strength of first person point of view is the degree to which it places readers directly into the mindset of a character within the story, and Poe used this strength to powerful effect. This can be seen, for example, in short stories such as "The Tell-Tale Heart" or "The Cask of Amontillado," which are told from the perspective of a murderer. His stories are richly atmospheric and psychological in tone, often with a strong focus on themes of the macabre. In this, he has had a profound influence in shaping the horror genre as we know it. Themes of death and mental illness are common in his work.

Edgar Allan Poe is a highly important writer, both in American literature as well as in world literature, whose literary legacy survives into the present day.

In addition to his place among "Gothic" authors, Edgar Allan Poe is known as the grandfather of horror in American Literature, because he was the first to employ many of his signature style elements in his work.  You could probably categorize Poe's writing under any of the basic elements of Gothic literature (setting, tone, presence of the supernatural or evil, etc), but I think there are three that shine through in his works the strongest.

First, I would include point-of-view.  Many of Poe's stories and poems are written in 1st person point-of-view and the narrator is nearly always untrustworthy.  In this way, Poe's stories come across as scary/mysterious in themselves, but additionally eerie due to a creepy narrator.  "Tell Tale Heart" is only one of the many stories that most of the intensity and fear is created by a narrator who may or may not be in his right mind.

Poe is also known for creating compelling atmosphere in all of his stories.  As a literary element, atmosphere is the combination of a specific setting and tone.  Poe often creates an eerie or spooky atmosphere through setting stories in remote places (and old houses or cabins) and adding to the already spooky place bad weather and illness.  Combined, these elements are common to many of his stories and make the stories uniformly dark and mysterious.  "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Raven" are two easy examples of atmosphere as a predominant literary element.

Finally, one of Poe's greatest achievements was his ability to create really twisted characters.  In addition to untrustworthy narrators in many stories, Poe had an affinity for adding mental or physical diseases and ailments to many of his stories.  As the first author in America to really play off this, you can see where the technique has been expanded into much of our modern day horror.  There is simply something innately scary about things humans cannot control and do not fully understand, especially when it is clear they actually exist.  Mental disorders in characters is so common to Poe that those who have read enough of his works tend automatically not to trust the sanity of any of his characters.  Think of Roderick and Madeline Usher, the narrator in "The Tell Tale Heart," or the prisoner in "The Pit and the Pendulum."

Edgar Allan Poe uses many different elements of style in his writing. Most commonly, he uses first person narration. You can find first person narration in many of his works, including "The Raven", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall Of the House Of Usher", and more.

Poe also uses hyphens to indicate agitation or fear in his narrator. Generally, when many hyphens appear in a paragraph or stanza, the narrator is in an altered mental state of some kind.

Poe also uses sound frequently, especially in his poetry, especially devices such rhyme and alliteration. There are examples of both internal and external rhyme in "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee". One of his most famous lines "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary" is an example of internal rhyme. Alliteration is also used in "The Raven" especially in the line, "And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain" the alliteration serves to convey the mood of the poem.

Poe's literary elements are certainly not limited to these, but first person narration, hyphen use, rhyme, and alliteration are some good places to start.