Edgar Allan Poe was an American author born in 1809 in Boston. He is famous for cultivating mystery and macabre themes in his short stories and poetry. Some of his most famous works that rely on themes of premature burial, death, decay, and paranoia include "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Premature Burial," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Tell-Tale Heart." Poe was skilled at exploiting these themes to achieve maximum emotional impact on his readers.

1. EDGAR A L L A N Lakisha Sanders English 1102 Troy university

2. Table of Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Introduction Biography Works Conclusion Works Cited

3. Biography Born January 19, 1809, Boston, Massachusetts American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor who is famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. Poe was the son of the English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr., an actor from Baltimore. After his mother died in Richmond, Virginia, in 1811, he was taken into the home of John Allan, a Richmond merchant (presumably his godfather), and of his childless wife. Poe returned to Richmond to find his sweetheart, (Sarah) Elmira Royster, engaged. Poe was considered a drunk. This gave rise to the conjecture that Poe was a drug addict, but according to medical testimony he had a brain lesion. He wrote and published over 120 stories. Poe later died in October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland.

4. The fall of the House of Usher Point of view where the protagonist tells a personal account of a crime that he or she has committed. Instead, the narrator is a character of whom we know very little, who acts like a participant/observer.

5. Works: Poe’s writing is considered within the Gothic tradition. In many of Poe’s works, we see the themes of premature entombment, death and decay, and paranoia. This is particularly true in the novel Dougherty argues signaled the “arrival of the Gothic tale,” “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Poe achieves this impact because he “meticulously calculates his effects,” writing “from the effect backwards.” This analysis will explore the elements of premature entombment, death and decay, and paranoia in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Premature Burial,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in order to illustrate how Edgar Allan Poe exploits maximum This analysis will explore the elements of premature entombment, death and decay, and paranoia in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Premature Burial,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in order to illustrate how Edgar Allan Poe exploits maximum

6. The Premature Burial A synopsis of one of Poe's short stories that convinces the reader that they know what the protagonist will suffer only to discover that he doesn‘t.

7. Works Continued: “The Premature Burial” Poe (4) takes psychological horror to new heights in the narrator’s increasingly claustrophobic and paranoid experience being buried alive: “The unendurable oppression of the lungs – the stifling fumed from the damp earth – the clinging to the death garments – the rigid embrace of the narrow house – the blackness of the absolute Night – the silence like a sea that overwhelms – the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror Worm.” The narrator in “The Premature Burial” is wracked with psychological stress over his fears of death. He is obsessed with death and being buried alive: “I was lost in reveries of death, and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my brain” (Poe 5).

8. The Tell-Tale Heart The story of a man who hears the heart of the man he killed still beating.

9. Works Continued In the Tale-Tale Heart, the narrator feels confined in the gloomy mansion as much as the narrator who is prematurely buried. He believes the claustrophobic and morbid setting of the tomb-like mansion is the cause, “much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room-of the dark and tattered draperies” that “rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed” (Poe 6).

10. Conclusion In conclusion, it is readily clear that Edgar Allan Poe relies heavily on the elements of premature entombment or burial, death and decay, and paranoia in his works to achieve maximum emotional impact on readers. It seems life is short and brutish and the joke is often on ourselves. Poe turns this role into a horror story that plays off of the themes of premature burial, decomposition, and paranoia is what provides maximum emotional impact on both his characters and readers. It is the author’s considerable skill in weaving them into entertaining stories and his unique style of horror that continue to keep them vastly popular.

11. Works Cited Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” September 20, 2010 http://poe.thefreelibrary.com/Fall-of-the-House-of-Usher, pp. 1-9. Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Premature Burial.” September 20, 2010 http://www.online-literature.com/poe/41/, pp. 1-8. Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” September 20, 2010 http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/tt_heart.html, pp. 1-3.