English 9
Reese
Multi-Paragraph Essay
Introductory paragraph
In this paragraph the writer grabs the reader's attention. This paragraph tells the reader what the
paper is about. When writing about literature, the writer should briefly introduce the work under
discussion, by mentioning the title of the work, its author, original publication date, and genre.
Where necessary, the introduction might summarize only enough of the story’s plot to place the
discussion into a meaningful context. Most important, the introductory paragraph should include
the thesis statement, a kind of mini-outline for the essay, a brief roadmap of what the body of the
essay will discuss; this thesis statement usually appears toward the end of the introductory
paragraph.
Example
Stephen King, creator of such stories as Carrie and Pet Sematary, stated that the
Edgar Allan Poe stories he read as a child gave him the inspiration and instruction he
needed to become the writer that he is. Poe, like King, fills his texts with rich images—
especially the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. In his short story "The Tell-Tale Heart"
(1843), as he depicts a young man who kills the old man who cares for him, dismembers
the corpse, and then goes mad when he thinks he hears the old man's heart beating
beneath the floor boards, Poe skillfully manipulates the senses. Most compellingly, Poe’s
vivid, concrete visual imagery presents both static and dynamic settings and supplies
compelling, multidimensional characterization.
The introductory paragraph includes a paraphrase of something said by a famous person in
order to grab the reader's attention; quoting a famous person is only one of millions of different
ways to grab the reader’s attention. The second sentence leads up to the thesis statement, by
introducing the importance of imagery. The thesis statement (sentence 4) presents the topic of
the paper and provides a mini-outline. The topic is Poe's use of visual imagery. The mini-outline
tells the reader that this paper will present Poe's use of imagery in three places in his writing: (1)
description of static setting; (2) description of dynamic setting; and (3) description of a character.
Body - First paragraph
The first paragraph of the body should include a strong argument, significant example, clever
illustration, or an obvious beginning point. The topic for this paragraph should be in the first or
second sentence. This topic should relate to the thesis statement in the introductory paragraph.
The sense of sight, the primary sense, is particularly susceptible to manipulation.
In "The Tell-Tale Heart," Poe uses the following image to describe a static scene: "His
room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness . . ." (385). Poe uses the words
"black," "pitch," and "thick darkness" not only to show the visual appearance of the old
man's room but also to evoke a kinesthetic sense of how the darkness feels. "Thick" is a
word not usually associated with color (“darkness”), so in using it Poe stimulates the
sense of feeling as well as sight. This multi-layered commingling of senses, or
synesthesia, concretely confirms the narrator’s claim that indeed his “disease had
sharpened [his] senses—not destroyed—not dulled them” (384). Further synesthesia
marks the narrator’s response to what he hears from the old man sitting in the thick
darkness:
Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal
terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief—oh, no!—it was the low
stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged
with awe. (386)
This conflation of the auditory with the kinesthetic appropriately foreshadows the
narrator’s climactic confounding of his own feeling of mortal terror with the sound of a
beating heart.
In the first sentence of the second paragraph (first paragraph of the body) the words "sense"
and "manipulation" are used to create unifying coherence with a similar reference in the
introductory paragraph. The first part of the second sentence provides the topic for this
paragraph—imagery in a static scene. Then the paragraph briefly discusses and explains several
quotations from "The Tell-Tale Heart" relevant to the topic. Note that all the independent clauses
focus on explaining and interpreting the imagery, so that the paragraph remains unified.
Body - Second paragraph
The second paragraph of the body should include an obvious follow up to the first body
paragraph. The first sentence of this paragraph should contain a transitional link with the
previous paragraph, to keep the whole coherent. The topic for this paragraph should be in the
first or second sentence. This topic should relate to the thesis statement in the introductory
paragraph.
Further on, Poe’s images continue confounding one sense with another, but now
to describe a dynamic scene. As the narrator stands interminably in the open doorway of
the old man's room, waiting for just the right moment to reveal himself, Poe delivers
another provocative visual image: "So I opened it [the lantern shutter]—you cannot
imagine how stealthily, stealthily—until, at length, a single dim ray, like the thread of the
spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye" (386). By using in his
visual image the simile of the thread of a spider (universally acknowledged as a creepy
creature) and the violently sudden gun-related verb "shot," Poe provokes simultaneous
kinesthetic feelings of arachnophobic horror and bodily violation as if by a high-speed
projectile. These senses of creepy otherness and violent violation of the flesh are
compounded by the metaphorical image of the old man’s one blind eye as "the vulture
eye."
The first sentence of the third paragraph (second paragraph of the body) uses the words
"confounding one sense with another" to link coherently to similar wording in the previous
paragraph. The first sentence also includes the topic for this paragraph—imagery in a dynamic
scene—linking the paragraph also to the thesis in the introduction. Again, directly quoted matter
is briefly discussed and interpreted. Notice that all the independent clauses focus on interpreting
the imagery; the one attempt at plot summary (in sentence 2) is properly relegated to a
subordinate clause.
Body - Third paragraph
The third paragraph of the body should include an obvious follow up to the second paragraph in
the body. The first sentence of this paragraph should tie coherently to the end of the second
paragraph. The topic for this paragraph should be in the first or second sentence. This topic
should relate to the thesis statement in the introductory paragraph.
The old man’s blind eye is his one visual trait supplied by the narrator. This
singularity reveals the narrator’s obsessiveness. Poe establishes the young man's
obsession with the old man’s eye as early as the story’s second paragraph: "He had the
eye of the vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it" (384) This "vulture eye" is
evoked over and over again—a total of six times—to make it an almost inescapable
visual image. That a vulture is a carrion-eating scavenger that hovers over scenes of
forthcoming death, again, thanks to Poe’s imagistic artistry, manipulates a provocative
visual image into a similarly provocative kinesthetic image. With the ever-present vulture
eye looming throughout the story, it is impossible to evade the atmosphere of death and
evocations of pieces of flesh, such as those the narrator will vainly try to hide between the
scantlings beneath the floorboards. Even after his death, imputations of the old man’s
vulture eye will hover obsessively over the narrator until he cannot any longer stand the
stress and confesses his crime.
In the first sentence of the fourth paragraph (third paragraph in the body), "blind eye" links
this opening with the previous paragraph. This first sentence also lets the reader know that this
paragraph will deal with visual description of a person: ". . . one visual trait . . . ." Once again
Poe’s text is quoted and discussed.
Concluding paragraph
The fifth paragraph is the summary paragraph. It is important to sum up and conclude in an
original and compelling way, as this is the last chance the writer has to convince the reader of the
validity of the information presented.
This paragraph should include the following:
1. some reminders of what the essay has tried to prove, BUT without simply
duplicating the thesis or the introduction;
2. a meaningful effort to place the preceding discussion in perspective, to give the
essay’s readers a strong sense of what insights, in sum, this essay has now made
possible;
3. some attempt to bring the discussion full circle, by connecting the conclusion back to
something mentioned in the introduction;
4. a strong final sense that the discussion has reached its logical end.
"Thick darkness," "thread of the spider," and "vulture eye" are three central visual
images in Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart" that stimulate senses beyond merely the visual. The
ties between such visual images and kinesthetic counterparts create a powerful emotional
synesthesia that the narrator cannot escape even after the visual images themselves have
disappeared. All conspire in the end to beset the narrator with his own recognizable
“groan of mortal terror.” Though Poe’s narrator tries to prove the ascendant powers of his
mind, claiming that “never before that night, had I felt the extent of my own powers—of
my sagacity” (385), what he really feels that night, as at no other previous time, is the
emotions wrapped up in the sensuous images of his macabre experiences. By the end of
the tale, the powers of his mind have been defeated by the powers of his internal feelings.
In other words, the visual has given sway to the kinesthetic. If Edgar Allan Poe was one
of Stephen King's teachers, then fans of King own spine-tingling images owe a huge debt
to that nineteenth-century creator of horror stories.
The first sentence of the concluding paragraph uses the principal words from the quotations
from each paragraph of the paper’s body. This repetition of earlier material summarizes those
three paragraphs. This re-quoting is only one of many millions of ways to handle such a
summation. In any regard, notice that the concluding paragraph NEVER merely parrots the
introductory paragraph. The next five sentences provide observations which can also be
considered a summary, not only of the content of this essay, but also of the insights into this
short story that can logically be drawn from the preceding contents of this essay. In the end, we
understand more than just Poe’s visual imagery; we better understand the whole story. The last
sentence returns to the Poe-King relationship that began this paper, bringing the whole full circle,
and providing a successful "wrap-up" that gives the paper a sense of finality.