A Study Of The Four Models Of Death In Poe's Fiction

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is a famous American writer, who is expert in his Gothic short tales concerning the frightening and supernatural.Clearly he has an obsession with the topic of death, as well as an extremely morbid fantasy life.Poe's tales show an elaborate collection of supernatural motifs. In his tales the supernatural arrives in various shapes and dramatizes the interpenetration of life and death and the mingling of opposites beyond the senses. Under the obvious influence of Walpole and other writers, Poe assimilates the conventions of Gothic horror. The supernatural style of the Gothic gives a means of expressing fundamental fear in illusions of death and destruction. And writers of Gothicfiction often use elements of popular beliefs, such as devils, curses, and spiritual visitations as a response to death in the face of religious doubt. Poe associates supernaturalism with mortality in his fiction. However, Poe moves beyond theGothic formula to explore different conceptions of death. Through the symbolic notation provided by supernatural motifs, we can identify the features of four principal paradigms: annihilation, compulsion, separation, and transformation.This thesis covers four chapters.Chapter One deals with the introduction, which gives a general account of the life of Edger Allan Poe, the relationship between his works and death, the survey of critics' study on the death in his fiction and the feasibility of the study of models of death in Poe's fiction.Chapter Two represents the importance of the Gothic supernaturalism in Poe's fiction and it is close to death.Chapter Three explains the four models of death in Poe's fiction in detail: annihilation, compulsion, separation, and transformation.Chapter four concerns the conclusion of this paper: gothic horror sets readers thinking that death in Poe's fiction is physical and psychological truth of modern consciousness.