Name the scariest books you have read?schools.misd.org/upload/template/5382/EdgarAllan...Keep in...
Transcript of Name the scariest books you have read?schools.misd.org/upload/template/5382/EdgarAllan...Keep in...
Name the scariest books you
have read?
Top 15
Continuation
The Tormented Life of Edgar Allan Poe
“The Short Life” 1809-1849
• Background• Born 1809-1849
• His mother died during his
youth and his father
abandoned them
• After the death of his
grandmother, Poe married
his 13-year-old cousin,
Virginia in 1835
• Virginia died in 1847
• Died in 1849
• Education of Poe • Entered and dropped
from both the
University of Virginia
and West Point
• Ran into debt and
started borrowing
money, gambling and
getting deeper into
debt
• Writing Style of Poe • Wrote in a Gothic
Style
• Deep and intense
• Explorations of а
world of dream and
of nightmare
• In his stories the
past is darker,
more ominous and
oppresses his
heroes and
heroines
• Poe’s Characters • Many of his
characters are filled
with madness
• Obsessed with the
irrational side of the
mind
• Famous Works– Short Stories
– Poems
• The Pit and the Pendulum
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Tell-Tale Heart
• The Cask of the Amontillado
• The Masque of the Red Death
• The Raven
• Lenore
Background
• The Masque of Red Death– Background
• Poe’s fictional Red Death is probably based on the Black Death, which killed as many as two thirds of the population in some regions in Europe
• Poe calls the plague “the Red Death” because victims oozed blood from painful sores.
Bubonic Plague- Black Death
• What caused it?
• Decimated 1/3 of
Europe’s
population.
• Extremely
contagious
• What nursey song
refers to it?
Name the Song• The invariable sneezing and falling down
in modern English versions have given
would-be origin finders the opportunity to
say that the rhyme dates back to the Great
Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a
symptom of the plague, and posies of
herbs were carried as protection and to
ward off the smell of the disease.
• Summary • In this story a fourteenth-century prince gives a costume party, or masque, to try to forget about the epidemic raging all around him.
• A sense of dread fills the hearts of the characters and readers as a sense of inevitability grows during the course of the story.
Literary Focus
• Themes • The insignificance of wealth and power
• Man vs. Nature
• Inevitability
• Fear
• Time
• Avoidance
• Human weakness and fear
• Arrogance
• Death
• Allegory • A narrative that is really a double story. One story takes place on the surface. Under the surface the story’s characters and events represent abstract ideas.
• Almost every element of this story has symbolic connections: From the colors of the windows, to the choice of masks. As you read the text, try to identify what each color could represent!
•Symbol• Something that is itself and yet also represents something else:
– Can be read both as a chilling ghost story and as an allegory representing the inevitability of death.
– Prospero’s name (Prospero means prosperous)
– The stranger’s appearance (Dressed like the Grim Reaper or Death)
– The arrangement of the seven halls
• The rooms of the palace, lined up in a series, allegorically represent the stages of life.
• Their colors (black=death), (red=blood)
• Clock marking the inevitable passage of time.
Characters
• Characters
– Prince Prospero
– The Stranger
• Prince Prospero invites a thousand lords and ladies to escape death by living luxuriously in his castle until the pestilence passes.
• To entertain his guests Prospero hosts a masquerade party that takes place in seven halls, each a different color.
• At the stroke of midnight, a tall figure in a blood-splattered burial costume appears.
• Prospero demands that his friends seize the intruder, but everyone is frozen with fear as the stranger slowly walks through the rooms.
Keep in mind: Masque of Red
Death is an Allegory.
• An allegory’s purpose is to expose you to
a strong theme. There are prevalent
symbols: colors, clock, costumes,
masques, names
• Look for the foreshadowing.
• Poe is a classic author, and his stories can
be quite disturbing.