USE OF SUSPENSE IN POES SHORT STORIES

-THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

-HOP-FROG
-THE BLACK CAT

POES USE OF SUSPENSE FOR HEIGHTENING THE

EFFECT OF HORROR AND TERROR
Most of the stories that we read in todays modern world trace a
great impact on our mind. But the question is how does the
author keep the reader excited and focused? The answer is
Suspense. Suspense is the type of writing skill that the authors
use to give the readers, uncertainty about the conclusion and it
becomes interesting for the readers to wonder and the want to
read more.
Edgar Allan Poe, an important writer and a poet, during the
Victorian Gothic period is credited with producing many tales of
mystery, and terror. Poes first collection of short stories Tales of
Grotesque and Arabesque was published in 1839.Poes
imaginative writings within several different modes of discourse
show how Poe both followed yet departed from a variety of
literary approaches and genres. In Poe and Gothic Tradition,
Benjamin Franklin Fisher begins by placing Poe among Anglo-
American Gothic novelists and then provides close readings of
several of Poes Gothic tales to show how he manipulated and
challenged the conventions of gothic fiction and horror. Also best
known for his tales of mystery and macabre, Poe was one of the
earliest American practitioners of short story and is considered
the inventor of detective fiction genre.
Instead of carefully defining realistic characters through a
wealth of detail, as most English or continental novelists did, Poe
shaped heroic figures larger than life, burning with mythic
significance. The typical protagonists of the American Romance
are haunted alienated individuals. Many of the isolated and
obsessed characters of Poes tales are lonely protagonists pitted
against unknowable, dark fates that, in some mysterious way,
grow out of their deepest unconscious selves. The gloomy
characters never seem to work or socialize instead they bury
themselves in dark, mouldering castles symbolically decorated
with bizarre rugs and draperies that hide the real world of sun,
windows, walls and floors. The hidden rooms reveal ancient
libraries, strange artworks and eclectic oriental objects. The
aristocrats play musical instruments or read ancient books while
they brood on tragedies, often deaths of loved ones. Themes of
life-in-death, especially being buried alive or returning like a
ghost from the grave as evident in The Fall of the House of
Usher.
The genre of Poes works, their plot structure, type of narration,
word choice, imagery, devices with the help of Poe creates and
heightens the effect of suspense and horror. Works such as The
Black Cat and The Fall of the House of Usher serve as vivid
examples of Poes effective horror creating technique. The main
thing that influences the way in which the story is affected is the
Setting. Poe uses settings primarily in this work to create an
atmosphere. For example in The Fall of the House of Usher, the
crack in the house and the dead trees imply that the house and its
surroundings are not sturdy or promising. These elements
indicate that a positive outcome is not expected. The thunder,
strange light, and mist create a spooky feeling for the reader.
A short story provides the writers with enough space to intrigue
the readers, to arouse his interest in the plot. The events are
mostly proleptic, being unaware of their meaning the readers
start experiencing nervousness and alarm, they feel that some
dark mystery is about to uncover. The reversal in the short story
comes to the end and it always comes unexpectedly. With the help
of this device, the writer shocks the reader, greatly intensifying
his horror. Thus, terrified with gloomy atmosphere of Rodericks
castle and sensation of trouble, the reader gets truly horrified at
the sight of Rodericks dead sister Madeline suddenly revived to
life.
When the story opens, we are confronted with a gloomy
atmosphere. When his eyes fall upon the House of Usher he says,
A sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit1and he is further
horrified by images he sees of the house in the tarn.Here, Poe
succeeds in creating a sense of fear and suspense in our minds.
There is also a use of colour imagery which creates an impact on
our senses and feelings made by the shades of light. Poe paints his
gloomy settings with four main colours: Black, Red, Grey and
Yellow. Poe observes keenly how each colour behaves. Red is the
colour of blood and therefore associated with agony and murder
like in The Hop-Frog it stands for the murder of the king and his
seven ministers and in The Black Catwhen the narrator plucks
out his cats eye and also murders his wife. Black is the colour of
Eternal night or Pitchy Darkness in The Fall of the House of
Usher it describes the atmosphere outside as well as inside the
house and the light is never bright but gives a ghastly and mystic
feeling. It also symbolises death, burial, fear, horror, misfortune.
With the help of these gloomy settings created with the help of
these hues of light creates an atmosphere of suspense.
After entombment of Lady Madeline, Rodericks health worsens
and even the narrator feels gloom and madness surrounding him.
This can be seen from the narrators lines,
It was no wonder that his condition terrified that infected me. I
felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild
influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.2
On the night that Lady Madeline makes her appearance, sleep
evades the narrator and he experiences a feeling of complete
terror that cannot be explained or understood by him. The
evident lines are, An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my
frame and at length there sat upon my very heart an incubus of
utterly causeless alarm.3
In the end when the narrator reads Roderick Usher from a book-
A Mad Tryst by Sir Lancelot Cunning, the events coincide with the
happenings in the house, which is again a depiction of suspense
and later its known that its Lady Madelines return from the tomb.
The evident lines are: It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone
which had arrested my attention; for, amid rattling of the sashes of
casement . . . which should have interested or disturbed me4.
In Poes story The Black Cat, right off the bat he begins
intriguing his reader with suspense. He writes a first person
account of how he has done something bad. As he starts to explain
what he has done, he continuously interrupts himself to remind
the reader that he was not in his right mind and he came up with
excuses as to what it is he had done. Then, he goes on to write,
Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-
morrow I die and to-day I would unburthen my soul. This is his
way of explaining that the narrator would be dead by the next
day. This causes the reader to experience even more suspense
and anxiousness by wondering what will happen to him. The
narrator in The Black Cat begins by warning us that his tale may
not be believable and that he wants to confess his deeds that have
so terrorised him. It can be seen that the narrator is superstitious
about his Black Cat, Pluto and fears it after cutting out its eye and
realises his mistake and experiences horror at his action and later
he kills the cat by hanging it.The second cat can be thought of a
modified version of Pluto or completely different cat. It is
suspenseful precisely because one isnt sure what the second cat
is.If the narrator can be believed, the cat is not only missing an
eye like Pluto but also grows an image of gallows on his chest. We
also learn that the narrator is writing from Felons cell .Waiting
to see what lands him in jail, adds another layer of suspense to the
story.
When the cat sees the narrator, He fled in extreme terror at my
approach.5Although after the destruction of his house, the same
feeling of fear is experienced by the narrator on visiting the ruins
and seeing the impression of the cat with a rope on the wall,
When I first beheld this apparition for I could scarcely regard it as
less my wonder and terror were extreme.6As the plot proceeds, the
narrator encounters yet another cat with some resemblance to
Pluto, later this takes a form of terror, evident in the lines, I
started hourly from dreams of unutterable fear to find the hot
breath of a thing upon my face an incarnate nightmare that I had
no power to shake off -incumbent eternally upon my heart.7
The Black Cat stirs up a sense of horror and terror within the
narrator which draws him to get rid of the monster, had he
dared8. The narrator is driven by fear; a sense of terror is which
prompts him to murder his wife, when she tries to rescue the
black cat.
Poe begins the story of Hop-Frog by setting the scene and
atmosphere by describing the characters and setting. One could
describe this as fairy tale which consists of king and his ministers.
I never knew anyone so keenly alive to joke as the king was . . . Thus
it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their
accomplishments as jokers.9Allen Poe presents his story with first
person narrator and the person is in the actual story, however
one never finds out who that person is and hence is intrigued to
do so.Poe also uses similes to arouse sympathy for Hop-Frog and
Trippetta.
There is an irony in the story as the king and his ministers fall for
Hop-Frogs plan of swapping the costumes with the costumes of
Ourangutangs.When this plan is being thought of, it is then the
readers who realise that the aim of the story is seeking revenge.
When the king and his ministers fall for the plan the story
becomes exciting to read which makes the readers keen and
curious to see how the plan comes on action. The climax and twist
in the tale of Hop-Frog is during the description of the corpses:
Here pretending to scrutinize the king more closely, he
held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped
him and burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half
a minute the whole eight ourangutangs were blazing
fiercely.10
After killing the king and his seven ministers, Hop-
Frogexclaimed:
I now see distinctly what manner of people these
maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy
councillors-a king who does not scruple to strike a
defenceless girl, and his seven councillors who abet him
in outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog,the jester
and this is mylast jest11.
The description of fear is further elaborated when the guests are
chained ourangutangs, The ferocious creatures . . . women
swooned affright12.
 The final aspect that makes each of these three stories unique
is the structure of narration. Dialogues here are a part of imagery
that helps to draw pictures of horror. Dialogues of The Fall of the
House of Usher differs from those of Black Cat and Hop-Frog.
They are long, descriptive and complicated. Some of the dialogues
between the narrator and his friend grow into monologues of
Roderick. The final monologue of Roderick composed of broken
and disconnected sentences shows the shock of horror that
Roderick experienced when he felt that Madeline was back from
her tomb. The evident lines are:
Now hear it?-yes, I hear it, I have heard it long. Long-long-
many minutes, many hours, many days, I have heard it-yet I
dare not-oh, pityme, miserable wretch that I am!-I dared not-I
dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not
that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first
feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them-many,
many days ago-yet I dared not-I dared not speak! And now-
tonight-Ethelred-ha! ha! the breaking of hermits door and
the death cry of the dragon . . .Oh! Whither shall I fly? Will she
not be here anon...Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible
beating of her heart? Madman! - I tell you that she now stands
without the door!13

Thus, apart from these three short stories The Fall of the House
of Usher, The Black Cat and Hop Frog there are many other
stories written by Poe in the same genre of horror. He was the
master of horror creating techniques. His language, style and
images make them all diverse and interesting. He uses devices
such as genre, plot structure, type and structure of narration,
vivid imagery settings, colour, lightto heighten the effect of
suspense, terror and horror in his short stories. Allan Poe not only
made a contribution in the development of horror genre but also
had an immense understanding of human emotions of fear, terror
and revenge among others.

NOTES
1. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror,The Fall of the
House of Usher, 9
2. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Fall of the
House of Usher, 29
3. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Fall of the
House of Usher, 30
4.Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Fall of the
House of Usher, 33
5. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Fall of the
House of Usher, 36-37
6. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Black Cat,
200
7. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Black Cat,
202-203
8. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Black Cat,
207
9. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, The Black Cat,
10. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, Hop Frog, 124
11. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, Hop Frog, 135
12. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, Hop Frog, 137
13.Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Terror, Hop Frog, 138

BIBLIOGRAPHY
George, Stella. Encyclopaedia of American Literature, the
Romantic Movement, pgs. 115,123,124

Wyndham, Lara. Masterpiece of American Literature,

Edgar Allan Poe, pg.74

Class notes and Reference to the prescribed short stories

WEBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=122956
 http://www.shmoop.com/blackcat-poe-plotanalysis.html

www.online-literature.com