How Does Edgar Allan Poe Create Suspense

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Edgar Allan Poe was a famous American writer during the 1800’s. During that time he wrote many kinds of stories, one of his more occurrent being mystery and suspense. Suspense means a sense of excitement, tension, dread, or fear about what will happen next. Poe creates suspense in his stories by describing a character’s anxiety or fear, describing a character’s pain or suffering, be it mental or physical, or by cutting off or pausing words or sentences. Poe repeatedly uses these methods in The Tell-Tale Heart, which is a story about an old man with an ‘evil eye’, and his butler who plans on killing him to rid himself of the torment of the old man’s eye. He also uses those methods in The Black Cat, which is a story about an alcoholic man who kills his cat, then gets another cat that drives him into insanity.…show more content…
He admitted it himself by saying, “True! - Nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am!” this adds suspense to the story by having the reader wonder what the butler could be nervous of. In The Black Cat, the story began with the husband writing “The results of these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me.” that sentence, similar to the one in The Tell-Tale Heart, has the reader wondering what the main character could have gone through to be so afraid. After getting a second cat that shared so much resemblance to the cat he hanged, he grew increasingly paranoid. He said, “I awake every hour from fearful dreams to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face.” because he could not sleep as the cat terrified him

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