EDGAR ALLAN POE
“The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale”
C H A R AC T E R I S T I C S
O F T H E S H O R T S T O RY
30 minutes to 1 or 2 hours to its reading
Must be able to be read at one sitting
Must contain a unique or single effect
Incidents in the story must be created and
organized to achieve that single effect
THE CASK OF
AMONTILLADO
By Edgar Allan Poe
SETTING
Dusk, carnival season
Narrator’s palazzo
Montresor catacombs (family burial vaults)
Damp, covered with mold, walls of piled bones
CHARACTER
 Montresor: the narrator, cunning, vengeful, a mason
(bricklayer), psychotic, dressed in a dark suit with a cape
 Fortunato: the victim, a wine connoisseur, dressed in a court
jester’s outfit (motley), name means “good fortune”
 Luchesi: NOT A CHARACTER, just mentioned as part of the
bait to lure Fortunato into the trap
CHARACTERIZATION
Narrator’s thoughts
Narrator’s actions
Narrator’s speech
Physical appearance
What another character says
PLOT
Exposition
• Introduces the characters
• Describes the setting
• Hints at the conflict (Point of Conflict)
PLOT
Rising Action
• Meets Fortunato
• Lures him to his palazzo
• Gets him to go down into the catacombs
• Shackles Fortunato to the wall
• Montresor builds a wall in front of
Fortunato
PLOT
Climax
• “For the love of God, Montresor!”
• “Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”
PLOT
Falling Action
• Finished the wall
• Replaced a skeleton
Denouement
• “In pace requiescat!”
• May he rest in peace!
POINT OF VIEW
 1st Person Narrator
•
•
•
•
Told through Montresor’s point of view
Only know what Montresor is thinking
Creates an unreliable narrator
Narrator presents himself as completely in the right to do
what he does
• Until the climax, the reader could possibly by sympathetic
• Only until the end does the reader realize what has
happened
THEME
How far does one go to get even?
IRONY
Technically these really don’t become ironic until the
reader realizes that Montresor has buried Fortunato alive
Verbal
•
•
•
•
“. . . you are luckily met.” (468)
“. . . your health is precious.” (469)
“And I (drink) to your long life.” (469)
The last line of the story (rest in peace)
IRONY
Situational
• Fortunato is dressed in motley (court jester)
• The joke is on him.
• Montresor’s profession is that of a mason
• Fortunato mistakenly thinks he is of the
Masonic Order
• Fortunato’s name means “good fortune”
IRONY
Dramatic
• Montresor Coat of Arms
• Gold foot crushing a serpent whose
fangs are imbedded in the heel
• Montressor Motto
• No one wounds me without being
punished.
THE FALL
OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
E. A. Poe
SETTING
 Dreary tract of country
 Evening, “melancholy House of Usher”
 Establishes gloom
 Mere house, simple landscape, bleak walls, vacant eye-like
windows, rank sedges, white trunks of decayed trees
 An utter depression of soul
 An iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart
SETTING
• “Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior,
hanging in a fine tangled web work form the
eaves. . .”
• “. . . A barely perceptible fissure, which, extending
from the roof of the building in front, made its
way down the wall in a zigzag direction until it
became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.”
SETTING
 Studio
• Very large and lofty, long and narrow windows, black oaken
floor
• Gleams of encrimsoned light through trellised panes
• Dark draperies
• Comfortless furniture
• Books and musical instruments lay scattered about
• An atmosphere of sorrow
• Stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom
CHARACTER
 Roderick
•
•
•
•
•
•
Cadaverousness of complexion
Large, liquid eye
Lips somewhat thin and very pallid
Delicate Hebrew nose
Chin in want of prominence
Hair of a web-like softness and tenuity (tenuous: delicate
and fine) “fell about the face”
• Ghastly pallor of the skin
 Roderick (cont.)
• Suffers from a condition that causes a morbid acuteness
of the senses
• Extreme sensitivity
• Could only eat certain food
• Could only wear certain garments of certain textures
• Odors were oppressive
• Light and sound sensitivity
CHARACTER
Madeline
• Roderick’s sister
• Has a disease that causes gradual wasting
away
• Has incidents of cataleptic seizures
CHARACTERIZATION
Character’s actions
Character’s thoughts
Physical appearance
Speech
Other character’s actions
PLOT
 Exposition: includes the narrator’s description of the exterior
of the house, of the studio, of Roderick, and of Madeline;
introduces an internal conflict that the narrator is having
PLOT
 Rising Action: Narrator is greeted by Roderick; discussion Roderick’s and
Madeline’s afflictions; narrator attempts to alleviate Roderick’s melancholy
through painting, reading, and conversing; Madeline “dies”; entombed her in
the burial chambers beneath the Usher mansion; Roderick becomes
increasingly more agitated; “Mad Trist” of Sir Launcelot evokes loud noises
from beneath the mansion; Madeline breaks from her tomb
 Climax: doors to the room open; Madeline rushes at Roderick
 Falling Action: Narrator flees the mansion; the mansion crumbles being
swallowed entirely by the tarn
CONFLICT
Internal: narrator’s perceptions of the House of Usher
and his desire to help alleviate Roderick’s depression and
help him
Physical: Roderick’s struggle with his physical and
emotional maladies; Madeline’s struggle with her affliction;
Madeline’s struggle to escape from her tomb
Psychological: Roderick’s inability to deal with reality
POINT OF VIEW
Told through the first-person narrator - his
thoughts and perceptions
THEME
3 Possibilities
• Simply supernatural
• Workings of the human mind
• Role of the Romantic artist
THEME
Simply Supernatural
• Suggests that the story was written
primarily for entertainment purposes
• A horrific story that fits into the Gothic
Tales for which Poe was so famous
THEME
Workings of the Human Mind
• On the brink of insanity
• Madeline (unconscious) and Roderick (conscious)
• When the conscious strives to deny the existence
of the unconscious, the human mind (the Usher
mansion) must fall into destruction
• Symbolism involves the use of vivid description of
the house as the exterior of the mind and body and
of the studio which is the inside of the mind
THEME
Role of the Romantic artist
• Roderick is an artist (poetry, paintings,
music)
• The realm of creativity and the desire to
achieve the ideal creative plane
• Roderick leaves the real world behind in
search for the sublime (beautiful, heavenly,
of the highest moral or spiritual value)
THEME
• No contact with the external world that
might serve as the subject matter of his
art
• Shut down his senses with no source for
his art but his own subjectivity
• Metaphorically, he must “feed” upon
himself
• The price the artist must pay for cutting
himself off is annihilation