How does Poe evoke fear? He does not use monsters, werewolves, witches, etc. I have read that Poe's terror is psychological, but how? What are the ideas about death, madness, etc. that Poe conveys in his writing that so effectively makes his tales so scary?

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2002

Answers

by scarying people

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Mostly, Poe uses either insanity (The Black Cat), fear (The Pit and the Pendulum), or death (The Masque of the Red Death) to show the reader that he means business. In your question, how is Poe's terror psychological, the only way that one can address it is that it relates to his style of writing, a sort of Romantic Gothicism. In this, it almost makes death a commodity, while torture is completely unwanted. In most of this psychological terror, Poe uses suspense to get people on their toes. Another big part of his writing style is that it is not as description based as it is perception based. Poe writes a lot of his stuff from another person's point of view, and it really shows through with a lot of variety... I hope this helps...

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2002