How is tension created in The tell tale hearts and The black cat? Essay

How is tension created in The tell tale hearts and The black cat? In this essay I am going to study the short stories ‘the black cat’ and ‘the tell tale heart’ written by famous writer Edgar Allen Poe and see how tension is created in the two tales. Both tales are written in a gothic horror genre and Poe’s intention for this was to chill and unsettle the reader, to make them anticipate what was going to happen next, as if it was really happening. Poe succeeds in doing this by the content of the tales, partly being the supernatural and the tension he creates, which plays a major role in both. He creates this tension by using several different techniques including plot, characterisation and many stylistic devices. One way that Poe creates tension is the plot of the story and where is it set. ‘The tell tale heart’ is set in the middle of nowhere and late at night, when it is dark outside. This automatically makes the reader uneasy, as nighttime and darkness is symbolic of dark and bad deeds. Poe mentions more than once that it is set ‘about midnight’ and that it is dark, ‘black as pitch’, he keeps reminding the reader of this, as he knows it is symbolic and the reader will be wary of this. Criminals will often act upon this time, as they are more likely to get away with the crime, as they cannot be seen as easily. People are most wary of little things, sounds and sights like shadows in the dark and will be on edge. Darkness and nighttime are famously scary and unsafe, portrayed in novels and films as when everything bad happens and now is the stereotypical view. The darkness seems like a disability, vision is not fully available, and the brain starts so wander as to if anything could be round the corner... ...it his name. Both the stories were written more than 100 years ago, in 1843. They are so old that when they were written no other genre of story like it was around at the time. They were original for the time they were written and set the standard for future writers. Poe invented this new genre and his writing skills and techniques form scratch and were the first chilling, gothic horror stories ever written, which adds to the reason of why they are so effective. Because no one had ever read anything like it before, and in a scense the stories were ahead of the time because of the effect they had. Poe’s work is popular worldwide and still his stories of this genre appear chilling as they are written in a old style that is not used as much today, but this is effective and one knows that they would have had even more impact at the time they were written.