Does anybody know if Poe has used a lot of metaphors in his short stories and if so in which short stories?

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2003

Answers

Few people see the obvious. In a genre(German Gothic) where lurid and wild similes colored the extreme descriptions Poe used few, even in poetry where the words "like" or "as" seem almost to be avoided "like" the plague. Poe preferred instead the organic connection, the continuity and corespondance of related things whether it were an idea, a style, a landscape, person or situation. The Fall of the House of Usher exemplifies this methodology as the heart of the story itself! So that is a good place to start. Where you might have problems is that, despite his philosophical statements in his stories, the "meaning" of the metaphor is not tritely ddidactic. In fact, the "idea" is not so universal or important as the deeper emotion or impact of the art. So when you might say that the Red Death stands for death and mortality ruling over man under thae fatality of time you can't ignore what the metaphor is actually doing, not just saying- and the emotion or shock it creates in its strange beauty or fantasy.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2003