A Sample Essay on gothic themes

It seems the Poe’s talent for gothic writing is the natural manifestation of his own gloomy personality. Characters and patterns he uses in his novels immerse readers into a spooky, uneasy and lonely world of mentally unstable people obsessed with strange ideas. The feeling of void, loneliness and emotional fluctuations are central for Poe’s gothic works. The  «Tell-Tale Heart » makes no exception of this rule. Let’s take a closer look at gothic themes author brought up in this short, though, very atmospheric story. Death. It’s the central subject of the story from the very first lines. The narrator informs us about his plans  «to take the life of the old man » at the end of the second paragraph of the novel. While in the beginning, the reader might still think that it’s just an evil imagination of mentally unstable person, very soon it becomes clear that the narrator’s plan to kill the old man is more than real. Step by step, using detailed descriptions of paranoid reasoning of the narrator, the author immerses the reader into the atmosphere of approaching tragedy. The description of preparations to the murder and act itself, as well as narrator’s justifications of his plans, are lengthy and explicit, intended to make his intentions  «reasonable ». Insanity. The narrator’s madness evolves together with the story. From the first lines, the reader understands that something is going wrong with the narrator as he tries to justify his intentions to kill a person. The  «evil eye » of the old man, in this case, is the representation of an idea fix, with which practically all emotionally and psychologically unstable people are obsessed. In the middle of the novel, readers find themselves completely submerged into the dark and messed up world of an insane mind. This darkness is catalyzed by detailed descriptions of the murder, dismembering of the corpse, etc. which makes the atmosphere of the novel even more threatening. The theme of insanity, typical for gothic writing, is omnipresent in this novel accompanying the reader till the end of the story. Asociality and detachment from other people are another typical subjects for gothic literature. The narrator of the novel expresses his reasoning saturated with loneliness and depression. His thoughts about the murder and obsession with his personality and idealized self-perception are clear signs of deviant behavior. The internal dialogue on the brink of sanity and psychological disorder, as well as disintegration with the external world, is typical for a lot of Poe’s works and  «The Tell-Tale Heart » is not an exception. Feeling of the inevitability. With the development of the story, and as the reader observes how the narrator’s insanity aggravates, the feeling of inevitability of some bad events is rising. This feeling accompanies readers throughout the whole story and keeps them on their toes even after the murder is committed. Only reading the last lines of the novel, where the narrator accepts his insanity which he so viciously denied throughout the story, readers may feel relief. Despite being a short novel  «The Tell-Tale Heart » story is full of unexpected twists of events and atmospheric descriptions which envelop readers and bring them to the essence of uneasy mind of a person, obsessed with an idea of the murder. This story is definitely worth reading for those who enjoy the gloomy world of gothic literature.