Recording Trauma "Unnaturally": Unnatural Narrative In Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories

Edgar Allan Poe,an American writer famous for his Gothic short stories,is noted for his works full of horrific elements,a mysterious atmosphere,and some scenes that are impossible in the real world.From the perspective of unnatural narrative theory proposed by Brian Richardson,Jan Alber,and other narratologists,this thesis explores the unnatural elements hidden in Poe’s three Gothic short stories,including “Ligeia,” “The Black Cat,”“The Fall of the House of Usher,” arguing that by employing unnatural time and space,unnatural events and unnatural narrative acts,Poe probes the trauma of the characters in these stories.This thesis consists of three parts: introduction,body,and conclusion.The introduction briefly introduces Poe’s three short stories and his life experience,explaining why Poe often describes the theme of trauma and employs a series of unnatural elements in his works.This part also reviews relevant literature by international scholars on these three short stories.The main body includes three sections.The first chapter analyzes the manifestations of trauma,arguing that through narrating the unnatural time and space,Poe reflects the traumatized characters’ inability to perceive time and their living space correctly.The second chapter analyzes Poe’s narration of a series of unnatural events,including the haunting of ghosts,the resurrection of the dead,and other impossible events in the real world to clarify the causes of the trauma.The third chapter argues that Poe narrates the characters’ attempts to achieve the healing of trauma by employing unnatural narrative acts.Then he explains that two different narrative acts bring two completely different results.The conclusion discusses that Allan Poe records the characters’ trauma“unnaturally” through several elements of unnatural narrative.The use of unnatural narrative allows Poe to reveal the manifestations of trauma,analyze its causes,and finally attempt to heal the trauma.