Suspense In Edgar Allan Poe’s Detective Fiction From The Perspective Of Schema Theory

Edgar Allan Poe, an eminent American author, poet and literary critic, is one of the important representative figures of American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and terror, Poe is one of the American practitioners of the short story and the popularity of detective fiction genre can be primarily traced back to him. It was him who created the general pattern and the classical triangle relationship of leading characters of a detective fiction, which became the model of the detective fiction genre. Highly praised as he was, he was also attacked venomously by his contemporaries because of his obsession with Gothic theme and ghastly scene. Critics at home and abroad have mixed attitude towards him.This thesis aims at the study of suspense in Poe’s reasoning stories from the perspective of schema theory. Suspense is the most important element in a detective story. Its special feature is to predict a very attractive state of affairs without telling it out. To be more exact, suspense is used to highlight an unusual situation and prolong the process of finding out the truth so that the mystery remains clearly unsolved. A schema is an abstract knowledge structure. The reason why it is abstract is because it abstracts the concept from a variety of cases that differ in many aspects. It is structured in the sense that it presents the relationship among its component parts. Schema can be classified into three types: linguistic schema, content schema and formal schema. The interaction between the default schema of readers and the written text of ratiocinative stories creates suspense in the process of reading a detective story, in the middle of which the relevant schema is activated step by step and newly-obtained schema in constructed unremittingly. The activation of the relevant schema including content schema, formal schema and linguistic schema of readers can be manipulated to create the suspense as it is required in reasoning story. To conclude, the present study shows that it is feasible and effective to interpret suspense in Poe’s rationative stories from the perspective of cognitive schema. Analyzing the using of suspense in Poe’s Dupin trilogy from the perspective of cognitive schema, the author not only deepens the study and research of the cognitive schema theory, but also offers a brand-new perspective to study detective fictions. The development and theoretical basis of schema theory will be introduced at first, and then the using of suspense in Poe’s Dupin trilogy will be analyzed at the following chapter. Finally, linguistic schema, content schema and formal schema, the most important concept in cognitive schema theory, will be used respectively to interpreter the suspense in Poe’s Dupin trilogy.