This is one of the reasons I’ll miss these RIG courses:
being “forced” to return to the classics. Last semester I was treated to H.P.
Lovecraft, somebody I’d always wanted to read but was too afraid to try (due to
the language in which it was written). Edgar Allan Poe is another staple of the
horror genre that I wanted to read, but never felt I had the brainpower for.
Was I ever wrong!
I can’t critique the writer because of the decades that
separate us—to do so would require me to read a lot more 1800s literature than
I care to digest at this stage in the game (so much for a doctorate’s in 19th
Century Literature), but I can talk a bit about the stories I read and the
psychos he introduced.
The Tell-Tale Heart
This is perhaps one of his best-known pieces of writing
aside from The Raven. It’s a simple tale of a man who commits murder but just
as he’s about to get away with it something drives him to confess. This fellow
spends the entirety of the tale trying to convince us he isn’t crazy, but we
don’t buy it. First off, he murders somebody over a disquieting physical
feature, but then he’s driven to confession by an imaginary beating heart. What
truly makes this guy a psycho though is his dedication to the cause. He spends an
entire week peering into the old man’s bedchambers at midnight just to catch a
glimpse of the eye. He does it so methodically, that it take him an hour just
to maneuver his head through the crack in the door. I want to believe that on
the eighth night, he intentionally woke the old man up to quicken deed. It’s a
great read, and is fantastically written in a tempo that denotes a spiraling
madness.
The Black Cat
Psychos abuse pets, right? Who knew that Poe was so cutting
edge? This is a tale of a kindhearted man who loves animals more than people,
but who finds himself growing meaner as he gives into alcoholism. He becomes so
mean as to begin to abuse the pets he so loves until finally one day he kills
his favorite beast—a pure black cat that his wife jokingly thinks is a witch.
It should be noted that he also plucked out its eyeball with a penknife at some
point in the recent past. That’s when the madness begins… or is it madness at
all? The line is blurred this man’s house burns down (leaving a strange silhouette
of a hanging cat on the one standing wall) . Of course, he feels he regrets the
cat murder, and goes about searching for a replacement. But why? Is it guilt?
It seems to be, but when he finally finds a replacement the cycle begins anew.
Now, this guy is obviously a psycho, but it also seems like Poe added a
supernatural element. When the man murders his wife because she gets in the way
of him killing the replacement cat (which looks a lot like his first one), he
boards her up in the wall and the cat disappears. Then the police come and he
(like our “hero” in The Tell-Tale Heart) about gets away with it before he
bangs on the wall he buried her in. The cat starts howling from INSIDE THE
WALL! Was it always in there? Was it really a cat, or are black cats really
witches in disguise and this one was out to get revenge… or better yet, was it
the original cat/witch back for revenge?
The Cask of Amontillado
So this one I loved! Primarily because the psycho got away
with it. My only question? Why! The story hints at centuries of murder in our
MC’s family to bolster the walls and crevices of their wine cellar, but the
victim didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He said it was his friend, but his
friend appeared to be a jester of some kind (his hat had bells and was cone
shaped… I’m not a 19th century Italy expert, but I saw court
jester…), and he had was rich. But the narrative him luring his victim to his
death, and goading him on with the “threat” of seeking another expert’s opinion
on the voracity of a bottle of wine was entertaining.
Overall:
Poe had a keen sense when it came to pacing, and he didn’t
write anything other than the what the story demanded. Yes, his language is
dated, but even by today’s standards his stories seem concise and get to the
point rather quickly.
Of course, that’s just the three stories I’ve read for this
assignment, and his bibliography demands my attention moving forward. In fact,
I think I’m going to return to his stories now…
Nice breakdown of the stories. I had never really considered that the cat walled up with the dead wife could have been the original cat/witch back for revenge! I know the narrator of the Cask was all over the place, but I think his "friend" had bells on his hat because there was a carnival going on at the time of the story, and this guy was one of the merrymakers.
ReplyDeleteLike Gwen, I too never considered the Black Cat as possibly a paranormal story but you make good points. I chalked the stuff up to his alcoholism and paranoia.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned pacing and "spiraling" and I thought, what a great description of Poe's strengths. I thought about those fund raising things at malls that you drop coins down a slope and watch them spin in a spiral faster and faster until they drop. (my kids always insisted on doing them anywhere we went). That's a great metaphor for his work.
You're so right about Poe never telling more than he needs to--which I admit is something very difficult for me to do. I remember in a high school English class when we were learning about "Old English" and many students suggested Shakespeare or Poe, but little did we know what we were in for: "Sumer Is Icumen In."
ReplyDeleteI love the way the narrator in Tell-Tale Heart spends so much time trying to convince us that he's not crazy. He really believes that his dedication and methodical planning preclude him from crazy.
ReplyDeleteI can see where there could be a supernatural element to Black Cat. It's an interesting idea.