One of Edgar Allan Poe's work was the Fall of the House of Usher. This work right here gave birth to haunted house stories. There many things that Poe did to create this story, that I would actually copy if I were making one of my own. For example, Poe, at the very beginning of the Fall of the house of Usher establishes a very gloomy and dark setting when he mentions that it is a "dull,dark, and soundless day". Poe creates this dark setting at the beginning of the story to hint at the reader that something is off. I would use the dark and gloomy setting to captivate the readers attention. This way they would want to know what place the protagonist is in and what they are doing there since it might be dangerous.
Another thing that I would replicate is the meticulously description that he provides in the story. Everything that the main character sees or hears is given to us in a very descriptive way that makes it sound very realistic. By making it realistic the reader is put in the place of the main character making them feel and hear what the main character is feeling or hearing. By using descriptive detail I will be able to make reader more nervous and scared.
Even though the Fall of the House of Usher was a well executed organized story, to me it seemed a bit too long. Poe dragged on the plot of the story, so it took a while to actually get to the climax, which is what the reader wants to get at. But then again he does it for a reason because as he drags on the plot he is making the reader anxious to know what is going to happen to the narrator: Is Roderick Usher going to kill him? What happened to Madeline? Where is that knocking or banging coming from? By dragging on the plot I would be able to put the reader at the tip of there seat as they anxiously keep reading and waiting, building the suspense.
While I was reading the Fall of the House of Usher I thought that maybe Poe was a bipolar person because he changes the mood of the story even though you don't really notice it. (Well at least I didn't only after looking carefully I noticed the change in mood.) At the beginning he creates a sulky dark mood, then as the story progresses he changes it to happy , and at the end it turns dark and sulky again.But I guess he changes the mood to catch the reader off guard. I would copy the change in mood in order to catch the reader off guard as well because it makes the reader more surprised and shocked at the ending. So even though the mood may change to a cheery one in a blink of an eye it could go back to a dark one getting us back on track in our scary haunted house story.
Finally the last thing I would copy is the small amount of people he includes in the story. Now a days they include so many people in haunted house stories that it doesn't make it scary anymore because instead of it focusing on the plot it focuses more on what the characters are doing distracting the reader. By choosing only 3 people in his story, Poe was able to focus more on the events that will happen to the characters and made it possible to understand what is going on giving that eerie feeling that the reader wants to feel. By only using a small amount of people I would be also able to focus more on the plot so the reader won't be dissapointed with the ending.
Credz for pics:
http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/174/e/e/edgar_allan_poe_by_crisvector-d3jswe4.png
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqBSzVTjpJM7Vf9twBuhdgG8l26XmCNrSFU_rK-n2HMT2ngFyKZmoU5TgF2sru4uyES8GfhoLIcREdh0Gbs8pEHwIXpkUm9k7-z-JD59AhPGK7T8d-REsFJ70jgUzOxGtLLQpMdQlXi6y7/s400/house-of-usher-1mraj8m.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpsmrodq7i1qgptbdo1_1280.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment