How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Descriptive Language In The Tell Tale Heart

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Descriptive writing creates a vivid picture using words. After surveying through the American authors from the Early American Colonial Period as well as the Romantic period that I studied during this course I decided to choose from the American Romanticism. The author that is the master of description is Edgar Allan Poe because he uses descriptive language, imagery, and the unity of effect. His style of work contains gothic elements of mysterious settings and surreal situations. Poe captures the reader’s attention putting them on the edge of their seats anticipating what will happen next. Edgar Allan Poe is the master of description because he uses descriptive language throughout his poems and short stories. Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is about a young caretaker who murders his elderly charge because he cannot stand to look at one of the old man’s eyes. The murderer is able to get away with his crime until the besting of the old man’s heart…show more content…
One piece of his work that uses imagery is The Raven and in this poem Poe uses a great deal of imagery to create the feeling of horror, grief and madness which was brought on by the loss a young man’s love, Lenore. As this young poet is grieving over the loss of Lenore a raven arrives who speaks no other word except “nevermore”. As this continues the poet is driven into an insanity curing to which he believes the raven is a messenger sent by Lenore in the afterlife. An example is found in the second and third stanzas of the poem where Poe sets the setting and tone of terror by the raven, “And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor, eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow”. Poe used this imagery to let the reader enter the world of the young poet in order for them to experience the madness and feeling of horror found throughout the

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