About Us  |  Student/Parent comments  |  Site Map

General notes on the stories: (from Garnet, Kathryn & Kelsey): Two ideas that seem to reign in Poe's works -- not only in mysteries but in everything -- are ratiocination and scientism. Ratiocination -- to reason logically and methodically Scientism -- the theory that investigational methods used in the natural sciences should be applied to all fields of inquiry. These concepts reign in Poe's stories. They indicate that every detail should be noticed: that collections of details become clues, which can be used to read situations. Essentially, if someone is intelligent and discerning enough, situations can be completely transparent. -- Dupin has this ability: he seems to read thoughts. Poe's own writing is crafted in this way. He is careful to include details that indicate the meanings of his stories. Rarely does Poe present a clear motive. -- often, the idea of killing one's double, or conscience, is presented. This brings up the idea of people's consciences that are never quiet, and their attempts to kill their consciences. Everyone is haunted by ghosts of their own creation, and the question of whether it is possible to ignore, or bury, these ghosts is often addressed. Bi-Part Soul -- an idea of the good and evil in a person or two sides to him/her. Jeckyll & Hyde) Stories of a divided self. Doppelganger motif -- the unsettling appearance of a twin or double who is/is not you. An idea that all lives are haunted by ghosts of our own creation -- we are unable to silence our conscience but these characters try anyway. The conscience cannot be killed. Poe's characters always have at least a subconscious motive, if not obvious. Stories examine if it is possible to keep evil thoughts/ideas inside. He immerses readers in sensation -- manipulates readers' emotions to understand horror. Brings up the question, "Can anyone escape his/her own conscience? Can you kill your conscience?" Empirical -- relying on observation or experiment Empiricism -- the view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge. Artistic economy/double-edged narrative -- words used for two functions. The Stories The Pit and the Pendulum (from Kirsten, Garnet, & Bailey so far) An elaborate torture scenario, where the narrator first survives through luck, then logic and lastly, rescue. The narrator is trapped in time and space. Story connotates being trapped in life. Idea that our life is a prison -- death is the only escape. Inquisitors killed innocents: "Victims had been in immediate demand." (p. 254) Narrator is innocent victim. "Down...Down...Down" (p. 264) The repetition here describing the pendulum's slow decent had a very strong appeal to my emotions -- very poetic. Full of sensory detail. Uses sights, sounds, smells, feelings, even the sensation of thinking. Poe uses word "moiety" to describe thoughts, but at the time, he is about to be cut in half by pendulum blade -- double meaning. -- Time is symbolized by the pendulum swing back and forth like a grandfather clock and space is symbolized by the pit, which the narrator has a chance of falling into. -- Life is a prison where a person is unable to escape the doom until we reach the end. Poe uses senses as a major part of this story because lives consist of seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling and our common sense. [EMPIRICISM]. This is a scientific story. The narrator assesses situation after situation. He tries to stay alive, but his assessments are usually incorrect. Talks about going into and out of life -- swoon and sleep -- causes some of his own terror, but this allows him to escape death at least once. Maybe that is how we get through life -- must observe, then analyze. -- The narrator's discussion of swooning is the revelation of going between worlds and then coming back again: What allows creativity? Where does it come from? -- Creativity helps the narrator to use his logic and to be living one must analyze and think about what is going on in his/her surroundings. I [Kirsten] think that the theme of this story relates to a person's ability to resist succumbing to death even in the face of impossible challenges. I found this story suspenseful because it seems like an entirely impossible situation for the narrator, but I couldn't help but feel hope for him anyway. The narrator recognizes the, "sweet rest there must be in the grave" (p. 251), yet each time he is confronted by death, he does not give in. Narrator may represent the innocent conscience of the inquisitors. He is tortured and almost killed over and over again. Every time he almost dies, there is a very abrupt end to the torture. First time, a fall that saved him (luck). Second time, by logic he gets the rats to chew him free and when it is almost too late, he bursts from his bonds to freedom, and emphasizes the word "Free" many times until he remembers that his captors will just try another way -- another attempt to kill their conscience. The third time he almost dies, he is tortured physically as well as mentally. Up until this point it has been only mental torture. French army stops the torture and saves narrator from falling to his death in the dreaded pit. Saved by Rescue. Different ways every time. Why? Suspense is built each time the narrator is in danger, and each time he is saved very abruptly so there is a sudden release of that suspense, but only for a moment. Even when the narrator escapes from falling into the pit, he chooses not to take the "easy" death of jumping into its depths. Again when he is threatened by the pendulum held by Time -- symbolism for our deaths that grow nearer to us as time passes -- the narrator rationality figures out a way to escape. At this point, the narrator has been freed from death by means of luck and then by his own wits. In his final confrontation with death, as the walls begin to close, there seems to be no hope for the narrator. He, "shrank back--but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison" (p. 269), even though it would be less painful and torturous to just jump to his own death. But because he resists, an unnamed person saves him. Through luck, reason, and help from some outside force, the narrator has defeated a death that seemed inevitable. Unlike the other Poe tales we've read, except maybe Annabel Lee, this is the only story that has a "happy ending" and, what I precieve to be, a postive message. I found this is unexpected, but also very satisfing. This tale is also unusual in that the main character isn't plagued by madness or a sense of urgency. Thoughts to consider: -- Why did Poe chose for the narrator to escape from death in three different ways (luck, reason, then help)? Why in this order? The Fall of the House of Usher (from Kirsten, Garnet, & Kathryn so far ) p. 65 "the vacant eye-like windows" this quote makes the house appear as a living thing, an evil presence that torments Roderick and the narrator. The decaying house embodies the decay of the family within -- An ancient aristocracy crumbling -- completely cut off from the outside world/ influence -- The family is sterile literally and figuratively (isolation and incest) This idea serves as a metaphor for the decay of the south. -- Plantations built on slave labor. Crumbling/ left behind by the rest of the world. Resistant to the outside. Allegory of the Southern states that tried to secede -- story has to do with dying, decaying south. House is representational of this. Both family and actual building are the "House of Usher": double meaning. Fungi on the house is decaying just like the south, fall of gentility, aristocracy, the romance of the Deep South. Family is ancient, artistic: stagnant views. They stick to themselves, do no learn from outside world, are old-fashioned -- this causes them to slowly crumble from the inside. Inbred, not strong, Like family, house looks good but is decaying. House dies when the last two family members die together. p. 65 "there are commbinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth" this is just one of the times thoughout the story where the narrator tries to scientifically explain the supernatural in order to make it less frightening. Roderick seems to have a sentient relationship with the house: -- He is convinced that it has life-like characteristics: (perception, evilness) -- He never leaves its walls. -- Both the house & Madeline he seems to love and hate. -- He is deeply bonded with both -- He dies with Madeline, and the house falls. p. 66 "Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend" this paradox becomes even more evident further in the story as, for example, when the narrator discovers that Roderick had a twin sister -- shows the uncertain circumstances that the narrator is entering -- he doesn' t really know that much about the man he's coming to help; this makes the narrator's willingness to aid Roderick strange. p. 68 "Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream", the narrator again attempts to explain something strange with a scientific answer as a meathod to alieviate his own fears. -- By summoning the narrator, it seems as if he craves connection with the outside world? Someone with whom to explore his intellect? -- (Madeline seems characterized mostly by her strange physical malady.) Narrator as a detached observer makes us feel connected. Poe lets us see as a sane person would. The same fear & worry & mystery would not be there if it were from Roderick's point of view. p. 71 "He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the oders of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tourtured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror" Like in The Telltale Heart, the character is plagued by hyper-sensivity of the senses -- driving him into maddness. Roderick's mind is tortured by his heightened perceptions, but sometimes, he seems to revel in the thoughts that he has: --The poem, his guitar improvisations. --He fiercely defends his theory about the house. The Painting -- reflective of Roderick's psyche, trapped in himself with a light. Doesn't know where the light comes from. No way in or out. p. 72 "...the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of this existance" Again the house is personified, making it seem to the reader that perhaps the house really is evil p. 72 "'Her decease,' he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, 'would leave him (him, the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.'" The narrator seems to hate that his sister will soon be dead, but then this becomes questionable as he then buries her alive. Roderick seems to love his sister/ feel a deep connection to her; as if he is living off of her dying. Divided -- he is a twin, split in half. -- The idea of people living off the dead -- curiosity/obsession with ancestry -- dead people (ancestors) live within us/ help to define us. -- When Madeline is actually dead, she is uninteresting. While she is dying, she is sustaining. Roderick is creative, paints, excited by her death. He is living by her dying, like Montresor in Cask of Amontillado. -- Roderick has a frenzy of creativity while she dies; otherwise the family has long been stagnant. p. 75 "They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasies (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration" an example of something Roderick loves -- because it allows him to speak his feelings? The line of the song that particularly catches my [Kirsten's] attention is the last: "And laugh -- but smile no more" (p.77) this line sounds sinister, it makes me think of evil laughter. p. 80 "...[Madeline's tomb] had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep" It's ironic that Madeline's tomb was once used as a dungeon, as it turned out that she isn't dead when she is put interred: it is again used as a dungeon. Trapped in life. The twins can't get out without death. Death is their escape. Love sustains them, but the love is selfish: he loves his sister so he kills her in order to keep her with him always. p.81 "It was no wonder that his condition terrified -- that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions."" It's strange that the narrator decides to remain at the house even though he doesn't really know Roderick that well. It's almost as if the house is keeping the narrator there. p. 84 "These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon -- or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn." Once again, the narrator clings to his scientific answers to bizarre phenomna. p. 89 "While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened--there cam a fierce breath of the whirlwind -- the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight" The house seems to "die" along with the two siblings. Again the house takes a human-like form; the house and the two siblings seem to share a certain connection, and when the two siblings die, the house dies, too.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (from Garnet, Kelsey, & Kathryn) In the introduction the narrator says that there is a difference between analytical and ingenious people -- the analyst must be ingenious but the ingenious person is rarely analytical. The analyst has creative intelligence, and is willing to look at every little detail, while the ingenious man only regards the obvious. Detectives look at every detail, and thus every detail becomes a clue. Intro essay introduces Dupin's analytic character. Essay is like the philosophical essays we are writing because it doesn't STATE, but pulls us along with the narrator's musing. Narrator says that to be analytical, one must not look only at cards in Whist or at pieces in Droughts but must observe opponents. The analyst must observe EVERY detail. To the detective the world is full of details that are clues. Not always clues to crimes, but clues to occurrences happening everywhere. Every detail tells the detective something, whether the information is useful or not. Ingenious people are brilliant and creative, with imagination. Analysts are ingenious, but they are also able to apply logic in order to extrapolate meaning. -- pure imagination without meaning amounts to nothing but wild fancies. Dupin is an analyst. He has ideas, and then applies ratiocination to reach meaningful conclusions. He looks for what could be, and discounts what obviously is not. He takes every detail into account, in order to identify clues, and solve the case. The police in this story are too involved in pondering the big picture. They briefly look at everything, instead of detecting the tiny details that make up important clues. I, personally, [Kathryn] was attached to the idea that there must be a motive. It is difficult to consider that there may not be a motive: leave pre-conceived behind and look closely at what is actually there. While watching Dupin, the narrator is often reminded of "the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul." (p. 96) "Bi-part soul" -- this theory expressed the idea that everyone has a double somewhere out in the world; it was widely known as an ancient theory during the mid-19th century. No one could understand the higher-pitched voice, which got me to thinking that it was not a human but some kind of monster. The Parisian police are portrayed as smart but not clever -- they are ingenious. Logic was constantly used to decipher clues. "to discard from your thoughts the blundering idea of motive." (p. 123) Many times people get caught up with the idea that there has to be a motive. The Telltale Heart (from Garnet & Kathryn) Old man's eye -- the EVIL eye. Curse? Omen? Narrator kills old man as an attempt to kill his conscience, represented by the eye. The eye is always watching what he does. Killing the man doesn't kill his conscience. Narrator gives himself away because he hears the beating heart of his conscience. The narrator may have felt that they eye was all-seeing, censoring, watching his every move. -- in an effort to escape authority, surveillance, he kills the old man. Who does the old man represent? God? Narrator's father? Certainly some authority figure. -- we don't know who the old man was; he could have been a father or a boss. The narrator wants to escape the feeling that his moves are being watched. He attributes this feeling to the eye, but actually he was trying to kill his own conscience, which proved to be impossible. -- This taps into the collective unconscious: the universal desire to escape authority. Empiricism plays a roll in this story. Narrator's senses are flawed; his knowledge is therefore also flawed; he consequently acts in a way that doesn't make sense. Artist economy/double-edged narrative -- -He argues that he is sane, broadcasting his insanity. -- Double-edged blade. His words tell us the opposite of what he is trying to prove. Narrator refers to Lady Macbeth, who was also full of guilt. The heart beat -- whose is it? Beat of the narrator? Old man's? Beat of the story. It pulls reader into the story. Narrator tries to bury his shame by burying the old man beneath the floor-boards, but conscience prevails. Heartbeat is the conscience. It comes out in little ways. Impossible to be completely rid of it. His problem was in him, not out of him in the old man, so the physical burying of the man didn't help narrator. The narrator kills the man, in a misled attempt to free himself from himself, (his conscience), and then buries the man; burying his guilt. Ultimately, his conscience betrays him; he is unable to conceal his evil deed or keep his guilt hidden inside of himself. -- Is it ever possible to do this? -- Lady Macbeth: "Out, out, damned spot." The Cask of Amontillado (from Kirsten, Kelsey, Bailey, Garnet, & Kathryn) Fortunato = "fortune"; Montresor = "my treasure" Montresor wants revenge on Fortunato and he says he must do it with impunity, in a way that he will not hurt himself. "I must not only punish, but punish with impunity." (p. 10) impunity means exemption from punishment... a pun or play on words Fortunato and Montresor are attending Carnival or Marti Gras: Fortunato is dressed as a jester revealing characteristics of being in tune with the physical side of the soul. He is social and happy and he enjoys having fun and attending parties. The drinking, eating, and laughing make the story playful. Montresor, on the other hand, is a mental person, who is witty, wealthy and detail oriented. He prefers the mind process and intellectualism. One thing that both these men share is the need and love for power and the need to be in control. Fortunado and Montresor are both men of wealth and stature. Both are very proud, and desire to control the situation as much as possible. Montresor doesn't make much of an effort to explain himself, validate his actions, or make excuses. -- he is sure of himself, certain that Fortunado deserved to die. -- he is also above more traditional methods of revenge. He has the power to execute a horrendously cruel plan, and he does so without regret. Fortunado is proud of his knowledge about wine: -- Montresor goads him by mentioning Luchesi throughout the entire story. -- Fortunado would never wait around while Luchesi tested the Amontillado; it would be an insult to his expertise. During the entire story, the men compete for control of the situation. -- Montresor is relentless in his hints and jokes, his insistence that Fortunado go back. -- this is a way to make himself feel even more powerful: like he is playing with his victim; messing around with Fortunado's mind. -- Fortunado is adamant about testing the wine; he insists on continuing on the voyage, leading Montresor by the arm. The power struggle continues even at the end of the story. -- at first, Fortunado moans and screams; Montresor revels in in torturing his foe. -- at the very end, however, Fortunado ceases to reply. Montresor yells to him, and when he doesn't receive an answer, his heart begins to feel sick. Fortunado's final act of defiance and control. "It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season..." (p.11) Madness has a double meaning. While it means the chaos of the carnival season, it also alludes to how the narrator is slightly insane? During the entire time Montresor is leading Fortunado to his death, he hints and jokes about what is going on. His tone is never obviously foreboding or cruel; his actions give meaning to otherwise harmless comments. Everything he says is sort of backwards, but calculated. -- p. 10 "my simile now was at the thought of his immolation" one of the many examples of irony in the story. While Montresor smiles and is kind to Fortunato, he smiles only to deceive him and because he thinks of his enemy's impending death. -- It's interesting that Montresor chooses carnival time as the setting for this crime. Amid the gaiety of the carnival, Montresor is sure he will avoid any possibility of being detected. Fortunato "accosts" Montresor "with excessive warmth". Montresor interprets Fortunato's kindness for attacks. Montresor says to Fortunato "luckily met". While Fortunato takes this as a kind greeting, Montresor is saying how the time is lucky for the murder. Both men are in costume, there is confusion everywhere, and Fortunato is drunk. -- p. 11, Montresor says that he "was never so pleased to see him." --p. 13 "You are a man to be missed", another example of Montresor's verbal irony --Montresor's seemingly kind act of offering some wine to help ease Fortunato's cough increases the irony--Montresor's act of "kindness" is only done in order to keep Fortunato healthy enough to get him into the tomb. Repetition of "Amontillado" all throughout the story is very musical. Reader can hear it. -- when he wants his servants to leave, he expressly tells them to stay. -- he notes the "white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls." to describe the nitre on the walls. Webs are traps for unsuspecting victims. [the web sometimes symbolizes beckoning fate. The snares of the world, denotes the Devil and human frailty. Also the malice of evildoers. ] -- when Montresor says these things he is mocking Fortunado -- When Fortunado says: "...it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.", Montresor replies, "True-true," -- which of course he has pre-determined -- "Indeed it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you." -- Montresor definitely does not want Fortunado to leave; but he will leave his friend. Montresor's family motto is a reference to Fortunado's insult, and the consequent revenge. -- "Nemo me impune lacessit." (p. 14) -- no one provokes me with impunity or exemption from punishment. -- p. 14 Montresor's description of his family's coat of arms seems to be symbolic of the two men's relationship to each other. Fortunato represents the foot crushing the serpent -- Fortunato's unknown insult to Montresor, the snake then seeking revenge by biting the foot in the heel. Both the family motto (No one attacks me with impunity) and the coat of arms imply that maybe the Montresor family history is filled with acts of revenge. Perhaps Montresor is the large foot and he obviously kills Fortunato, but the act of the killing poisons him in turn. Montresor could not exact his revenge with impunity. -- Montresor serves Fortunado "De Grave" wine. (Grave being French for grave.) -- Montresor shows Fortunado an actual trowel, as a sign of his practical masonry skills,when Fortunado refers to the Freemasons, which are a fraternal order with its own secret signs & hierarchy (a kind of men's club). Fortunado: social, happy, playful, material, physical -- p.13 "the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode", Note the SOUNDS of Fortunado: the repetition of the jingling bells, the coughing in the catacombs. The sounds add to the two-sided, ironic atmosphere of the tale--the lighthearted jingling associated with the gaiety of the carnival contrasts with the dark misery of the tunnels and against Montresor's true intentions. -- As they continue their journey, it's stated that the catacombs hold many of Montresor's dead relatives. It's ironic that Fortunato will spend the rest of his existence alongside the relatives of a man who hates and kills him -- Again at the very end of the story, Montresor hears the jingling of the bells -- this sound is eerie because it contrasts with the setting of the end. Montresor: logical, conniving, >intellectual -- In killing Fortunado, Montresor seeks to free himself from physical desires that inhibit the capacity of the mind. -- the mind controls the body, but is weighed down by basic physical needs and material desires. There is a sense that the physical, (Fortunato), is inferior to the mind, (Montresor). Body needs food, water, movement; mind just needs to think as a mind does. -- Montresor wants to free his mind. He punishes the crass, physical self by shutting him away, but doesn't actually commit the act of killing. -- it is not the actual death, but the extension of the death that he has so carefully crafted that brings Montresor pleasure. -- he is, however, haunted by his actions fifty years later: is it possible to kill part of yourself? Bi-part soul, etc,. The murder (putting away) of Fortunato energizes Montresor. This is a story of dual identities and a duel between two identities. People live off the dead through memories -- the passage of cultures, ancestry or nationalities. -- This is the "perfect murder" because it is the mind (Montresor) versus the body (Fortunato). Montresor wants to get rid of the base body things because the body can weigh down the mind and he wants logic, clarity and purity to win the duel. Montresor commits the perfect murder, PHYSICALLY. No one catches him, no one even suspects him, and it was easy for him. His MIND is poisoned by it. He is obsessed with the murder and over half a century later he still remembers every detail like it is yesterday. Montresor doesn't actually KILL Fortunato. He just puts him away in a state of dying. Montresor lives off of Fortunato's dying -- like many of Poe's characters. The note that relates to Montresor's final words :In pace requiescat" states: "'May he rest in peace!' Montresor's revelation that he is telling this story fifty years later and his use of the Latin prayer suggests that he is telling it on his deathbed, perhaps to soothe a guilty conscience." (p. 346) Does Montresor feel guilt for his crime? Has he "put it away"? Last two sentences -- "For half of a century no mortal has disturbed [the bones]. In pace requiescat!" Why does he use "mortal"? Does that mean maybe the narrator thinks immortals have been visiting the bones? Rest in peace. Does Montresor feel regret? The poison from his conscience finally caught up to him. Snake = Montresor's conscience? Puns: -- Dual... identity: physical vs. mental -- Duel... Fortunado vs. Montresor -- White web work:cobwebs that catch and trap flies -- Montresor makes a toast to the buried instead of the dead, which in a way is like making a toast to Fortunato, whom Montresor plans on burying alive. -- Fortunato is a member of the Free Masons Brotherhood and when he asks Montresor for the secret sign Montresor pulls out a trowel, playing a joke/pun on the idea of a mason or bricklayer... he will "free himself" through his "masonry" (he is not a "Freemason").

BACK TO English III page | Essay notes page | | Poe notes & poems page

The North Fork School Home Page | top of this page

Click on bar below to email Marie

Copyright September 26, 2007 Marie M. Furnary All rights reserved.