Student Question

What figures of speech does Poe use in "The Gold-Bug"?

Quick answer:

In "The Gold-Bug," Poe uses several figures of speech, although sparingly due to the story's detective narrative style. He incorporates colloquial dialogue, especially Black English, as in "Dey ain't no tin in him, Massa Will." Gothic imagery is present, such as descriptions of skulls, and he employs rhetorical questions and vivid imagery to enhance suspense. Poe also uses analogy, likening the narrative's clues to links in a "great chain."

Expert Answers

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The story/novella is a kind of detective story, with a doctor as a narrator, and there are lots of dialogue and inductive reasoning, so Poe keeps the figures of speech to a minimum.

He uses colloquial dialogue (Black English):

"Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin' on you," here interrupted Jupiter;

Gothic imagery:

"this is a very passable skull -- indeed, I may say that it is a very excellent skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology

Rhetorical question and imagery (in bold):

Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these events should have occurred upon the sole day of the year in which it has been, or may be sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment at which he appeared, I should never have become aware of the death's head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?

Analogy:

I had put together two links of a great chain. There was a boat lying upon the sea-coast, and not far from the boat was a parchment -- not a paper -- with a skull depicted on it.

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