Monday, August 19, 2019
Madness and Fear in Assignation, Cask of Admontillado, Fall of the Hous
Madness and Fear in Assignation, Cask of Admontillado, Fall of the House of Usher, and Masque of the Red Death Poeââ¬â¢s madmen are all obsessed with death. Existence within reality eventually becomes impossible. Poe usually places his madmen within a room or other enclosure, but they are rarely ever outside. When we do come across an exterior, nature does its best to repress, confine and enclose the man. The protagonist in Poeââ¬â¢s ââ¬Å"The Assignationâ⬠sums up the combination of time and space within Poeââ¬â¢s stories and says, ââ¬Å"I have â⬠¦ framed for myself â⬠¦ a bower of dreams. Properties of place, and especially of time, are the bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the magnificentâ⬠(301). The mental state of the character produces the setting and atmosphere, which usually results in the manifestation of that which is feared. The character manipulates his environment and uses tangible buildings and their contents as talismans or charms to outwit death. However, while the madman may try to circumvent death, it is actually the experi ence of dying that he fears, and despite his best intentions, death comes anyway. ââ¬Å"The Cask of Admontilladoâ⬠features the madman Montressor who seeks relief from his tormentor, and plans the perfect crime, ââ¬Å"to punish with impunityâ⬠(274). Montressor painstakingly formulates the plan to rid himself of Fortunato, his tactless and unsuspecting friend. The fact that the crime is detailed meticulously in ââ¬Å"Caskâ⬠is odd considering the narratorââ¬â¢s obsession with planning the perfect crime and his equal obsession with the absence of detection. Does the anxious tone in the confession-like story indicate that Montressor falls victim to his own perfect crime and awaits execution? In his confession, Mo... ...sity Press, 1987. 177-214. Kinkead-Weekes, Mark. ââ¬Å"Reflections On, and In ââ¬ËThe Fall of the House of Usher.ââ¬â¢Ã¢â¬ Edgar Allan Poe: The Design of Order. Ed. A Robert Lee. New Jersey: Barnes & Noble Books, 1987. 17-65. Poe, Edgar Allan. ââ¬Å"The Assignation.â⬠The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Hervey Allen. New York: Parkway Printing Company, 1938. 293-302. Poe, Edgar Allan. ââ¬Å"The Cask of Admontillado.â⬠The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Hervey Allen. New York: Parkway Printing Company, 1938. 274-79. Poe, Edgar Allan. ââ¬Å"The Fall of the House of Usher.â⬠The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Hervey Allen. New York: Parkway Printing Company, 1938. 231-45. Poe, Edgar Allan. ââ¬Å"The Masque of the Red Death.â⬠The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Hervey Allen. New York: Parkway Printing Company, 1938. 269-73.
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