Michelle Spera detective fiction/macabre

genre - detective fiction/macabre
title - The Raven and Other Poems and Tales
author - Edgar Allen Poe

This collection of short stories consists of some of Edgar Allen Poe's most famous and amazing works. Born into a life filled with disappointment and loneliness, it is no wonder that most of his stories depict vivid murders and poems that seem a mystery all their own. This collection includes stories such as "The Black Cat", "The Tell-tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado", as well as poems like, "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee". All of these stories have death and madness as a theme running through all of them.

In all stories, the main characters are driven mad by other agents, whether it be guilt, revenge or simply insanity and rage. In, "The Tell-tale Heart", a man is driven mad by the sound of a beating heart belonging to his victim buried under the floor boards. "The Black Cat" is about a man murdering his wife and burying her in a wall along with his enemy, the black cat and "The Cask of Amontillado is about a man who is driven so mad by revenge, that he chains a man to middle of the floor in a wine cellar and turns the room into a tomb, building a wall over the sounds of his screams.

The poems as well take this grotesque turn and although "Annabel Lee" does have a notation of love, Annabel Lee is taken from her lover and brought down to a watery grave. "The Raven", probably Poe's most famous poem, also has a man going crazy by the repetition of a raven's taunting mantra, "Nevermore". Althouugh, these brief summaries do not at all do justice to the depth of Poe's work, they give what is needed to classify them in the genre of detective fiction and macabre, staying ttrue to the idea that stoires are not just a single genre, but can fit into many types.

Poe basically invented the genre detective fiction. Usually describing a crime of murder and being about the work of a detective investigating a murder, Poe has written many stories (The Murders at Rue Morgue) that fit into this genre. Two women are horribly killed, but the room is locked from the inside preventing the killer from escaping. The story follows the deduction work of the detective, Mr. Dupin as he solves the murder. For this type of fiction, Poe's stories especially fit because as a reader, we expect detective work to be done, just as the title suggests.

More commonly, Poe's stories fall under the genre, macabre, characterized by grotesque and horrifying atmospheres. Themes of death and horror are usually deliberate. Poe uses amazing detail that many authors did not even consider at that time. In, "The Black Cat", the murder of the man's wife is described as, " I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot without a groan." (Poe, The Black Cat) Since these ideas of the grotesque are intentional, it would make sense that the input of these detailed deaths are seemingly not very important and written very casually. The imagery Poe uses in both his short stories and poems creates a dark tone in which the reader can still hear the screams within the sealed wall as they close the book.