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Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his short stories and specifically the manner in which he was able to draw in the audience and totally hold their focus. Interestingly, it seems that all of his stories have a specific location that is defined by a specific space and time. This locale helps to initially draw in the reader to the world that Poe presents as his launching ground for the story. His mastery of the physical world of his tales is amazing, as is the manner in which he creates these realms.
Poe examines his own methods of composition and creativity in the essay The Philosophy of Composition. Within this text, he explains the technique in which he creates the perfect physical space. Specifically, the use of effect, tone, and circumscription of space are the means by which Poe provides a physical world that captivates the reader into the story. This technique can be followed into many of his short stories and revealed within those texts. The Cask of Amontillado provides an excellent example to explore the superior means by which Poe creates a captivating physical world. He begins by setting the effect of the story, which is shown at the outset of the tale to be the revenge of Montressor.
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge At length, I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled I must not only punish but punish with impunity. (1567) At once, the reader is given a feeling of looming disaster for the character of Fortunato. This effect begins to work on the remainder of the physical world. The continuing description of space, the tombs and the atmosphere, serve to facilitate the ominous and threatening revenge. The reader will instinctively begin to feel this impending revenge and conclusion of the narrative which will effect their understanding of the descriptive space. The tone, however, is also one of impending doom and darkness. It was dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season (1567) when Montressor decides to act on his revenge.
The reader again, senses the hurried and anticipated act of climatic revenge. The physical world begins to draw on the tone, as the descriptions of place have a darker and more sinister manner. Poe has thus focuses his narrative on the similar tone and effect and ties them together through the words of the story and the physical world begins to emerge. Once the tone and effect have been set, Poe uses the famous circumscription of space to chisel out the remaining physical world. The main use and enclosure of space occurs in the catacombs of Montressor's family. Poe describes the vaults as insufferably damp (1568) and filled with white web-work which gleams from [the] cavern walls (1569).
The space of the tombs closes in on the two characters as they move deeper and deeper into the recesses of the catacombs. Poe relies heavily upon his circumscription of space as he says it is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident: it has the force of a frame to a picture (1577). He continues to diminish the space of the story by mentioning when the characters passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame (1570). Poe has now closed the physical space down to a dark and heavy crypt, where the light only glows. The reader is now completely drawn into the physical world by the effective descriptions that Poe attributes to it. The world is very concentrated and leads to the climax of the story when all the elements of effect, tone, and circumscription come to a head as Fortunato is walled in.
At this point, the space is so confined to allow only for a wall and a hole in which the action takes place. However, the technique of physical space is not confined to The Cask of Amontillado, Poe uses these methods in the famous tale of The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe utilizes a the same means to achieving a physical world as before, but this time he attempts different descriptions to gain his tangible space. In this tale, he uses all of his conventions to create a mysterious, dark, and foreboding world for the action. The tone is quickly established at the beginning of the story, as Poe begins to describe the physical world.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within the view of the melancholy House of Usher. (1508) Interestingly, Poe mentions the melancholy environment of the House, which he believes to be the tone of highest manifestation. He goes on to state that melancholy is thus the most legitimate of poetic tones (1575). This tone is echoed throughout the story in the descriptions of the house, its atmosphere, and Usher. The reader begins to understand how the melancholy tone effects the physical space. Already, Poe has begun to establish the perfect environment, through tone, to house the action of his story.
The opening of the story quickly draws the reader into the world of melancholy by presenting a variety of descriptive images that evoke solemnity and sadness. The basis for the effect appears to be one of desperation and hopelessness. This effect is further explored when the reader is introduced to the crux of the story. Roderick Ushers twin sister, the lady Madeline, has fallen deathly ill. Roderick is so effected by her illness that it has destroyed his previous demeanor and has replaced it with melancholy emptiness. The narrator feels compelled to go to the House, comfort his friend and raise his spirits.
The effect Poe attempts, is that the depressive darkness which has befallen Usher and his house will be availed by the narrator. It is this effect that helps to focus the physical world of the events that the narrator and Usher go through. The reading of books and playing of games brings the focus into a series of dreary rooms and depressing chambers. The reader, himself or herself is also drawn into the House and can almost feel the melancholy leaking out of the page into their own world. Poe has again, helped to apprehend the attention of his audience by the descriptive nature of the physical world.
Further, the circumscription of space is vitally important to Poe in this story. He contains almost all of the action in the dreary and sad House of Usher. There is hardly a scene that does not occur outside of the rooms in the house. It is almost as if the house itself is blocked from the outside world because of the damp and despondent attitude that pervades each room. To further create his physical world, Poe describes the tomb with which Ushers sister is buried. The vault in which we placed it was small, damp, and utterly without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. (1517) This tomb continues to emphasize the darkness and horror that has captivated the house.
Poe must continue to shrink and emphasis the space that he has created. He even remarks in his essay that the circumscription of space has an indisputable moral power in keeping concentrated the attention (1578) of the reader. The climax of the story is the final and most concentrated physical space that Poe achieves. He isolates Roderick and the narrator in the chamber room, reading books. Then, figure of Roderick's sister, the lady Madeline, enters the room in a fury of suspense and terror. The force of the opening doors is magnified ten-fold by the intimate space that Poe has created.
There is nowhere for the characters to turn when the climax occurs. They are forced to stay and accost the lady, who has risen from the dead. Even the conclusion itself is marked by a final, ironic circumscription of space as the house collapses in upon itself. The physical environments in Poe's short stories lend themselves to a highly descriptive nature. It is this nature that Poe uses to emphasize the physical space of the tale to draw in the reader. Without his use of effect, tone, and circumscription of space, it would not be possible for the engaging environments to exist in Poe's work.
These techniques of creation are clearly visible in stories such as The Cask of Amontillado and The Fall of The House of Usher and it is evident that the clearly defined physical environments of these tales easily engage the reader. Certainly, the technique that Poe employs greatly helps him to write a completely engrossing and unique world where his stories reside. Bibliography:
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