The Gothic, Narration, and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”

Narration; point of view; character The Literary Gothic Short Stories Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”

focus: angle of vision: limited or unlimited? omniscient? if so, centred on one consciousness? first or third person? reliable? voice: verbal aspects Point of view

Characterization Depends on plot, and point of view Round or flat? major or minor?

The Literary Gothic Elements of the Gothic The Marvelous vs. the Uncanny The Literature of Terror vs. the Literature of Horror

Elements of Gothic Narratives monstrosity, grotesque transgression, taboos paranoia, claustrophobia barbarism, violence, sadism abjection sublime

mystery supernatural effects, ghosts, haunted houses, ancestral curses, cemeteries medieval elements/setting

degeneration, decay, death, morbid elements entrapment gloom, isolation

Doppelgängers dreaming/nightmare s terror / horror

“The term Gothic comes from the Goths, one of the tribes that took part in the conquering of the Roman Empire.”...

“For centuries, the word stood for medieval barbarism, and sometimes was used to represent the culture of the Middle Ages generally: Gothic architecture, for instance.”...

“Late in the eighteenth century, a new kind of novel made use of many of the traditional trappings of the Middle Ages: dark castles, secret passages, stormy nights, gloom, and terror. The early Gothic novels... were actually set in the Middle Ages, although later examples of the genre (such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein ) were set in the present.”...

“The Gothic vogue probably peaked in the Romantic period... but it survived well into the nineteenth century... and, in spite of some transformations, into the twentieth.” from the Guide to Literary Terms by Jack Lynch. u/~jlynch/Terms/gothic.html

The Marvelous vs. the Uncanny A certain hesitation exists throughout a Gothic tale: the hesitation of the reader in knowing what the rules are in the game of reading. Can our understanding of reality account for strange goings-on, or do we have to appeal to the extra ordinary to account for the circumstances of the story?

The Literature of Terror vs. the Literature of Horror A work of terror creates a sense of uncertainty that leads to a complex fear of obscure and dreadful elements (the sublime). It stimulates the imagination and often challenges intellectual reasoning. Works of horror use concrete imagery designed to induce fear, shock, revulsion, and disgust.

Horror: from horrere (Latin): “to make the hair stand on end, tremble, shudder.”

The Short Story as an emerging form the gothic; detective fiction; horror

Short story: “a fictional prose tale of no specified length, but too short to be published as a volume on its own…A short story will usually concentrate on a single event with only one or two characters, more economically than a novel’s sustained exploration of social background. There are similar fictional forms of greater antiquity—fables, lais, folktales, and parables—but the short story as we know it flourished in the magazines of the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially in the USA, which has a particularly strong tradition.”Chris BaldickThe Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms

literary rivalry with another author Edgar Allan Poe

“The Cask of Amontillado” Godey’s Lady’s Book 33 (Nov. 1846):

narrative arc characterization setting point of view symbolism themes unity of effect

Harry Clark, 1919 Immureme nt

"Can you possibly conceive it. The unendurable oppression of the lungs, the stifling fumes of the earth, the rigid embrace of the coffin, the blackness of absolute night and the silence, like an overwhelming sea." --Guy Carrell in The Premature Burial (1962)

Questions Terror or horror? Marvellous or uncanny? Why did he do it?