Edgar Allan POE爱伦坡的写作艺术特色

山西师范大学现代文理学院本科毕业论文
爱伦﹒坡恐怖小说的写作艺术特色
姓名：王丽霞
系别：外语
专业：英语
班级：1103
学号：1190030315
指导老师：***
答辩日期：
成绩：
内容摘要：
爱伦坡的恐怖小说因深刻的颓废之美，怪异，忧郁而闻名。

本文通过分析埃德加·爱伦·坡最具代表性的恐怖小说,可以探知作者的心灵式恐怖。

埃德加·爱伦·坡的小说明显继承了传统哥特文学。

随着对哥特式文学独创性的继承，创作出属于他的独一无二的恐怖小说。

同时，在他恐怖小说中呈现出的写作特色包括象征手法，渲染手法，第一人称叙事角度。

运用心理分析法分析神秘，隐晦的象征手法，理解其具体意义和它是如何激发读者的想象力，使读者在想象中体验恐惧的魅力。

对色彩，环境的渲染使得恐怖故事具有阴暗，恐怖的画面感。

第一人称的叙事角度，使得故事变得更加逼真，贴近读者，让读者直面血淋淋的场景。

这些手法的应用，顺利解决了恐怖小说创作中推进情节和制造恐怖感的难题。

对爱伦·坡恐怖小说写作特色的分析会帮助读者更好地理解他的书和思想。

关键词：爱伦坡恐怖小说写作艺术特色
Abstract
Edgar Allan Poe’s horrible fictions are well-known for a profound beauty of decadence, grotesque and gloom. In this paper, through analyzing the most representative American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s horror fictions, we can touch the writer’s uncanny world. Edgar Allan P oe’s fiction s obviously inherit from the traditional Gothic literature. Poe, with his ingenious inheritance from Gothicism, created a unique style for his horrible tales. At the same time, his writing characteristics including symbolism, rendering technique and the first person visual angel are presented in most of his horrible stories. Using the psychological analysis to analyze the mysterious and obscure symbolism, to understand its specific meaning, and how to arouse the readers' imagination, which makes readers experience the glamour of the fear. Rendering of the colors, environment makes the horror stories with dark, terror sense of pictures. First-person narrative point of view makes the story become more realistic and close to the reader confronted the bloody scene. Application of these techniques successfully solved the problem of advancing the plot and producing terror feelings in the creation of horror fiction. Analyzing Poe ’ s writing artistic features will certainly help people to understand his book and thoughts.
Key words :Edgar Allan Poe horror fictions writing artistic characteristics
Content
I. Introduction (1)
II. Gothic Features (2)
A. The Definition of the Term “Gothic” (2)
a. The character’s horror actions……………………………………….3.
b. The scene settings (3)
c. The theme of death (3)
B. The Creation of the Gothic Literature……………………………….5. III. Symbolism
A. The Definition of Symbolism (5)
a. Scene images (6)
b. Color images (6)
c. Animals images (7)
B. Analysis Symbol From Psychology (7)
a. From Sigmund Freud’s Theory………………………………………....7.
b. From Aristotle’s Theory (9)
IV. Rendering Technique
A. The Specific Application of Rendering Technique (9)
Ｖ．Writing From First Person
Ａ.The specific Application of First Person (10)
VI. Conclusion (11)
Work cited
The Writing Artistic Characteristics In Edgar Allan Poe’s Horror Fictions
I. Introduction.
Not a passion is more direct touch the soul of human than fear. We can deeply realize the frightened soul, and totally immerse in terror tales which created by Poe. Dangerous actually does not exist, but Edgar Allan Poe used his gifted imagination and narrative skills to show them with specific subtle details. With the degree of terror upgrading, the panics make readers immersive.
Edgar Allan Poe(1809-1849) is one of the most outstanding writers in American three prominent terror novelists. He is the American 19th century author of fiction, poet, literary critic, journalist, editor. His poetry and fictions have been attracted extensive attention from all over the world, especially his horror fictions, with its mystery, terror attracts more and more researchers’ interest. In his tales, he created an integrated mysterious and terrible atmosphere, and achieved thrilling effect. He is good at using fantasy to express his awake and wise, and a meditation of life. As the notable English writer George Bernard Shaw once said, the United States has two great writers, Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. "Poe's greatness lies in his was the first one to start digging human consciousness is the deepest darkness in the field of people." (常耀信Chang Yaoxin)
Once there are many conventional people feel hard to accept this kind of weird protagonists for they are used to reading that encouraging stories that full of love and hope. He was misunderstood by his contemporaries and their followers for a long time. Mark Twain thought Poe’s prose hard to be readable. However, now his works both attract readers, and let the reader feel the narrator’s sometimes lucid, sometimes maniacal abnormal mind. He believed “art for art’s sake”. His theory of effects and unity and the techniques he used in his tales have influenced most writer after him, especially the detective writers. The authors explored two extremes, the people’s good or evil, reason or mania, and strove to depict the intermediate zone between the two extremes. In his works, Poe confused boundaries between reason and mania, the difference between waking and
dream. Beauty and terror, fear and pleasure that are accompanied with each other.
II. Gothic Features.
A. The Definition of the Term “Gothic”.
Gothic literature is a collection of terror and romantic literature. Edgar Allan Poe 's horror fiction not only inherited the traditional Gothic novel writing pattern, but also develop a unique Gothic novel writing style. The origin of the "Gothic" can be traced back to the word "Goths" , which initially described the Germanic tribes of the most deadly, savage branch. And the "Gothic style" is used to describe French church architectures of the 11th century, and its characteristics are high taper steeples, high arch windows, colored glasses and internal gloomy environments. The Gothic novel originated in Britain in the late 18th century. The Castle of Otranto(1764) written by Horace Walpole established the model of the early classical Gothic novel. Since then, this writing style attracted many people to imitate, and extended to the whole Europe and the United States. Edgar Allan Poe are the most significant among the representative personages in the early Gothic novel.
The Gothic novel has strong appeals to readers, for its profound psychological and the aesthetic sources. The psychology of the Gothic novel is based on a sense of fear and curiosity by nature. When readers are reading Gothic stories, they usually have a strong experience of fear, of being personally on the scene and do not worry their own safety at the same time. Readers have a experience of imagination themselves or replace the characters, or as a participant, or as a spectator, and with the development of events in the works, readers complete adventures travel of mind. There is no any cost of adventure. Modern people and ancestors are both keen to ancient monsters, popular legends and appalling and scary ghost stories. Although people will be afraid of them, but they still want to find stimulation. Human curiosity, the demand of fear and safety, and the demand of courageous hero are all meet in the Gothic novels. When society people are feeling depressed, this kind of work is popular in the market.
The Gothic novel, fundamentally speaking, is the past and present negative reaction of comfortable, safe political stability and the commercial prosperity.The most important thing is that it resists rational control. Therefore, the hero is usually violent and cruel in the
Gothic novel, which plots are bloody and violent, and often happened in the past, especially in the middle ages, and used castles, ruins or wilderness as the background. The plot is weird and horrific, and often with a mysterious supernatural, giving people the most strong fears of the soul and visual stimulation.
a.the character’s terror action
The Gothic novels ’characters was oppressed by social and secular vision for a long-time, so they usually became insane and crazy. Such as Heathcliff in the Wuthering heights. And in Edgar Allan Poe ’ s novels, hero usually became vicious brutality in that inexplicable fear in his inner world.
In a Bucket of White Wine, he deceived Fortunato to his home cellar and killed him, who once insulted him.
In the Black Cat, the author describes the actions of killing the black cat and his wife.“Slowly I took a knife from my pocket, opened it, and then carefully cut out one of Pluto’s eyes from its socket.”and when the hero killed his wife, he thought that he could cut the body up into very small pieces and then burn them in a fire, and that he could put the body in a box and then ask someone to carry the box away.
Moreover, in the Tell-Tale Heart, Poe depicted this cruel pictures: “ First , I cut it into pieces. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. I then took up there boards from the wooden floor, and hid the body underneath.”
b. the scene settings
Under the traditional Gothic novel, the choice of the scene is very common. They were likely to select a bleak and isolated places, such as castles, cellars, cemetery, as the scene of the story. And Edgar Allan Poe also had an obsession with the theme of death. Poe was good at using his unique imagination, with the help of a grim scenario, to strengthen the result of the terror. Poe insisted that this closed, dark environment can expose human nature and desire and show human irrational world.
c. the theme of death
Because the Gothic novels itself is from the eerie, dark and mysterious architectural style, its contents are generally violence, murder, fornication, etc. The death of death is
the eternal theme in the Gothic novels, of course, which is Edgar Allan Poe's most beloved. When the terrible incidents happened, there are often accompanied with some characters ’s death. Before Poe, the author Lewis created a novel Monastery whose plots contained killing one with maltreatment, which is the landmark work in the Gothic novels. Therefore Poe inherited these kinds of plot from the former writer. Edgar Allan Poe’s life is suffered form a series of blows and grief, so he can more deeply understand the theme of death.For Poe, death is not a natural fact, but an accident which people could not control when it happens. Death means a new lease of life and a transcending. It has a super organic meaning.(Poe’s Aesthetic Perspectives of Beauty in Art , Life and Death. 潘蕾2006，April，26页)
A bucket of white wine is the most representative and typical revenge of the theme of death. Avengers Monterroso knew a lot about his enemy Fortunato as his profound hatred in his heart. He held on to others fatal weakness, which is human common weakness, vanity, and he knew that Fortunato ‘s biggest weakness is that he considered himself as a reviewer of good wines. Monterroso pretended a worship, friendly, warm and affectionate heart in surface, but actually hidden dangers and set a trap.
In the Masque of the Red Death, death seems to be doomed and invincible. In the shadow of death, people are panic, hysterical, and despair hidden under the carnival. As "the Red Death" spread in the whole city, half the people of this country had already died from it. In order to avoid the plague, the fearless prince Prospero invite a thousand of his brave and strong friends to stay with him in a castle, far out in the countryside. The castle had a strong high walls and great gates of heavy metal. They all thought that they fled to a safety place far away from the Red Death. That forms an obvious contrast: outside wall is red death world, life itself yet was inside the castle. The contrast of death and life, and the close distance of them let a person have no way to retreat and make people crazy. Party held in seven rooms, but the seventh room was the most frightening for its walls were black, carpet was also black, but its windows were a deep blood-red. No one can enter into this black room that represented the domain of the death and meant people’s deep fear. Every time as the clock slowly rang the twelve long chimes of midnight, it reminded
revelers of the coming of death and let their hearts experience death's powerful and oppression at every moment.
B. The Creation of the Gothic Literature.
Edgar Allan Poe made a bold innovation of the Gothic literature, turned the horrors of the Gothic novel into mental horror,and revealed the human inner fear.
Poe once wrote his mental terror in the preface of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. If the theme in many of his story has always been a terror, he insisted that the terror is not German type, but a type of mind. He deduced such terror just from reasonable source, and simply made the tendency of reasonable results.
In the Gothic novels, Poe made innovations in the structure of the form. The characteristics of the progressive type structure is obvious, clear, and easy to narrate. Along with the advancement of the story, the narrative rhythm speeding up, the plot is becoming more and more exciting to achieve climax under the atmosphere of terror. In Poe 's horror fictions, he further developed the progressive structure. Using the first person in order to recall the past things according to chronological order. Narration stratification makes the development of tales particular attracted, and mysterious. In the novel of William Wilson, using the structure of the progressive type tells the story of “I” in chronological order. “I”go to school met a student whose name and birthday is the same as me. And he was always opposing me. So "I" became more and more wild. After fighting again and again, “I” killed “another I”.
He revealed the evil in human nature. In the second half of the 19th century America, the beautiful art still occupied the dominant position. Until the last century, the principle of beauty and ugliness was introduced to the modernism art. A large number of literature and art creators tried to reveal the contradictions of society and life from the opposite side. Edgar Allan Poe 's works existed a lot of ugliness, and also broke through the traditional aesthetics. Poe’s aesthetic innovation exceeded other contemporary writers.
III. Symbolism.
A. The Definition of Symbolism
The symbolism is an artistic technique that expresses similar emotions and thoughts
with the specific image that easily associated. So-called objective image is through different emotional activities to create a kind of artistic image. In other words, it is an objective image that used to express objective emotions. Poe was influenced by British romanticism and German idealism aesthetic. So Poe is keen on singular weird things that in his view are not terrible, but a beauty of the bizarre. Poe fully utilized his genius, to create one by one significant and profound images. He used some animals or things to represent the abstract concept, which can be divided into the following category.
a. Scene images.
The ancient castle in the Masque of the Red Death, the dark damp underground wine cellar in a Bucket of White Wine, the bleak old house in the Fall of the House of Usher are scene images. Airtight, isolated and bleak scene image produces a depressive environment, and impacts the protagonist's psychological feelings and spirit.
After reading the Fall of the House of Usher I was scared for a long time. At first sight, it seems to be an abnormal emotional story, but the image setting not stayed on the surface meaning, but gave it more complex and deeper meaning. The house of usher symbolic meaning is that it gave birth to the old family, but at the same time closed itself, also closed its owner. And the House of Usher is on behalf of both the collapsed building and the family. In the end, the house and its owner both ruined. The characteristics of the house are similar to the temperament of the hero. To achieve the effect of the unified theory, Edgar Allan Poe integrated the scene image with hero’s temperament. The melancholy House of Usher shows the protagonist's mental state with great pain.
b. Color image
It is badly common to use color as the image in Poe ’s horror novels. Red and black were also his favorite color images. He chose them for red is the color of blood and black is a symbol of death. In the Masque of the Red Death, the seventh room was black and its walls were black, its thick, heavy carpet was also black. But its windows were a deep blood-red. For each fire was opposite a window, so in the black room the firelight that shone through the blood-red window changed the room into something too horrible to describe. And as the fires burned brighter, the colors and shapes in this room became more
horrible than ever.
In the fall of the house of Usher, the black tapestry, the dark silent lake, in the tell-tale heart, the dark lantern, the old man had a pale, blue eyes that all brought people greatly unease and panic. Whether black cat or the dark House of Usher are both filled with so much color images that produced more horrific feelings.
c. Animal image
In the book of the Black Cat , this title laid an ominous tone for the full story. The black cat is not a simple "object", but a prominent horror, which makes the hero in fear all the time, also gives the readers a kind of fear of excitement and pleasure. In the West, the ominous black cat is the embodiment of the witch and a symbol of evil. The name of the black cat, Pluto, was originally the name of the hell and the ruler of the underworld in the ancient Greek mythology. Pluto often made a sinister sound. Edgar Allan Poe designed the Black Cat as title and Pluto as the name of the cat, which the aim is to create an terrible atmosphere. As shown in the ending, the black cat led to a end, “ On top of her head, with a red, open mouth and one burning eye, sat the black cat - the animal which has had made me a murderer, and which would now send me to death.”
When the first cat hanged in a few days later, there appeared another black cat that like Pluto, but a white mark on its chest. The white mark of the chest showed the shape of the gallows, which made the hero frighten. The white mark reminded his crimes, aroused his guilt, and became the symbol of his crimes.
In short, Poe not only simple inherited the death and gloomy aesthetic orientation, violent plots in the Gothic literature but also innovated the Gothic writing techniques, and more strove to explore people’s inner world.
B. Analysis Symbol From Psychology
a. From Sigmund Freud’s Theory.
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic personality theory focuses on the study of human unconscious mental activity. Freudian theory of human psyche is a kind of "understanding people's motivation, personality, mental activity of science." It has a huge influences on many areas in modern western society. Among them, the three-level personality structure
points out that the imbalance of ego, id or the self, superego will lead to mental illness and personality disorder."The self", or the subconscious mind, is the most basic part of the personality structure and lies in the deepest heart, representing the most primitive, instinctive impulse and desire. Id follows the principles of happiness that do not have any moral, ethical and value factors. It is easily impulsive, but can be controlled and regulated. "The ego" is from “the id”and is the executor of the personality. It is the medium that contact with the outside world according to actual condition to adjust the id and the superego and it does things according to the moral principles. "The superego" is a manager in the personality structure, and is on behalf of the social moral standards. Since there always exists the opposite between the superego and the id, ego needs to coordinate the contradictions between the id and the superego.Only the id, ego and superego arrive balance, can a person's spiritual world be normal. If they don't balance, they can cause abnormal mentality and personality distortion.
Poe probed the most secret unconscious and subconscious mental activities that showed a person’s mentality from abnormal to breakdown.Poe's psychological description is vivid, natural and frank. Through psychological activities, we can see the ugliness and evil of human nature, and have a profound introspection and the purification of the soul.
In the book of the Black Cat,when the hero’s superego is unable to suppress and prevent id’s violent impulse, violent nature that hidden in the depths of the protagonist subconscious began to do evil things. So one day the hero committed unforgivable crimes under the uncontrolled evil thoughts. Later, protagonist and his superego was tormented by criminal facts. Every time he remember that day he killed the cat, he still feel sadness and pain. As a result of the need to self hurt self, people often know that we should not do but still done something stupid or evil. In this novel, Poe went into the most deep place of the human consciousness that showed the evil instinct in a person's unconscious.
Usher lived in the house of usher where full of despair for a long time, and only had a sister. The intolerable darkness, and desolate, terrible, bleak atmosphere gradually eroded and distorted Usher’s spirit. And because id overindulgence made he fornicate with his sister, he felt deeply regret, fear, anxiety and guilt. Because of id indulgence, superego will severely punish id.
It is difficult to achieve balance for these three parts which are always contradictory and not harmonious in the personality structure, so everyone more or less have some
mental illness that symptoms severity or lighter. The objective environment make the readers realize the psychological development of health and personality molding auxiliary need good environment, including family environments, school environments, social environments, etc. Ego should coordinate the relationship between the id and the superego, and should emphasize the guidance and warning role of superego and should make decisions according to the social ethics and common sense.
b. From the theory of effects and unify
In "the review of H awthorne’s twice told tales" (the review of Hawthorne 's twice told tales. 1840) he explained his creation principles. He thought a clever writer not put his own thoughts into his plot, but planned in advance and created a unique distinctive effect, and then fabricated some plots and contacted with these plots. All these things are in order to realize the theory of effect and unify. He believed that the work should be a harmonious unity. From beginning to end, every detail, every plot, each place, even every sentence, every word should achieve a unified effect.
Based on his famous creation principle of theory of the effect and unify. Through his elaborate conception and clever arrangement, he created the unique aesthetic effects, and aesthetic values.
In the novels, name is not random, but carefully chosen for the ultimate horror effects. The pronunciation of Fortunato is similar with fortunate, and Pluto is the name of the hell in ancient Greek mythology.
IV. Rendering Technique
A. The Specific Application of Rendering Technique
In Poe 's horror fictions, both the depiction of psychology, environment, and all kinds of horrible death way in the novels, give one impression of terror. In the fall of the house of usher, Poe portrayed“I looked up at the old house with its high stone walls and narrow windows. I looked around at the thin dry grass and the old dying trees, and sick, and could not think of one happy thought to chase away my gloom.” Thus we can see, His works through rendering environment, such as old house, high stone walls, narrow windows, thin dry grass, old dying tree, to emphasize the decline of the surrounding environment, which makes people feel that life is fragile and prepares for the next horrible plot.
In the Fall of the House of Usher, about seven or eight days after they had put Lady
Madeleine’s coffin in the vault. Outside, there was a storm which was growing wilder. “I”could hear some low sounds from somewhere inside the house. And then Poe described the violent storm as the follow that made people feel much tension.
“T he wind from the violent storm outside crashed into the room, nearly knocking us to the floor. It was, indeed, a wild, but strangely beautiful night. The wind seemed to be going in circles around the house, and huge, heavy black clouds chased each other, first this way, then that way. We could see no moon and no stars, but a pale ghostly light lay around the house.”
At that moment, “I” read a wild, fantastic story whose plot is Ethelred breaking the old man’s door, the cry of the dragon, and the falling of the gates. This story the hero read enhanced the tense atmosphere. And then the plot arrived the climax. Usher’s body began to shake, and a sickly smile came over his lips. He said that he had put Madeleine alive into a coffin. At the end of this story, Poe depicted this picture “O utside, the storm was still violent and as I ran past the lake, a sudden wild light shone around me......There was a long shouting sound, like the voice of a thousand waters, and the deep dark lake closed over the broken pieces of the House of Usher.”which made everything disappeared and the story full of the breath of despairing.
Ｖ．Writing From First Person
Ａ．The specific Application of First Person
It's not hard to find that the first person in narration in Poe 's horror fictions. From the perspective of the reader, applying the first person to give readers a real feeling, to stimulate reading interest, and to build a kind of objective real effect. While from the author himself, using the first person in narrating the experience of gruesome story can objectively present and tell the hero's thoughts and behaviors. This way can let article write fluently and better analyze the narrator own mental condition. Poe seemed to be a prophet of god, and know the development of all things.
In the novel William Wilson, a series of events experienced by the author with "I" as the main content, he also let readers feel that has really happened , and leave the deep impression.
In the beginning of the Tell-Tale Heart,“I could hear all things, things in this world and things in heaven. I heard many things in hell, too. So how can I be mad?”The "I" repeatedly stressed he is not crazy, normal mental, how people have a normal mental to kill the old man suffered from cataract? When the police asked what has happened, “I” heard the noise of the old man’s noise of beating heart becoming louder and clearer, and then “I”
collapsed, told the police that the corpse was under the floor. If “I” didn't hear that beating heart, I can escape from the pain of heart, and legal sanctions, but “I” heard this horrible noise was bigger and bigger, “I” argued, “I” walked up and down the room, “I” felt that “I”must scream or die. Finally, “I” can not stand it and accept the realistic punishment.
“We humans seem to like hurting ourselves. Haven’t we all, a hundred times, done something stupid or evil just because we know that we should not do it? ”He borrowed "I" in The Black Cat to briefly analyze people ’ s criminal mentality, and show that the dark inner corner of the man.
IV. Conclusion
Poe lived in America where the whole country was filled with hope of life in the second half of the 19th century, however, he focused on the death, and the darkness. Edgar Allan Poe 's works not only improved the depth and breadth in literature, and promoted the development of the romanticism, but also studied social concerned psychological problems now. Poe by means of describing the terror to express his view on the good and evil, to expose meditation and inner struggle in the modern western. As a successor and innovator of traditional Gothic literature, he has become a significant writer in American literature. He used techniques such as symbol, rendering, the first person visual single in his tales to create a stunning success. Edgar Allan Poe's strove to explore the secrets of the human mind, and explored the limits of human psychology. He showed that beauty is not a kind of nature, but make the readers feel strong sense of pleasure from horror and let readers enjoy them.。