Poe
This essay is about how Poe uses the description of environments in his narratives. I shall explain this usage with close reference to several short stories by Poe. A full listing of the stories used appears in the List of Works Consulted at the end of this essay. It is important to note that in all of the stories, the narration is in the first-person. This has deep-reaching effects on how particular environments are described. This will also be commented upon. The first excerpt comes from a story entitled "MS Found In a Bottle": Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons, copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was freighted with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We had also on board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium. The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank. Poe describes his environments in great detail - thus giving the reader a clear representation of where the scene is taking place. The above description is short and concise compared to a usual Poe description. Here he has described the ship as beautiful - this is an opinion and not a description, and Poe often gives opinions in his descriptions. His descript
He does, however, have the narrator comment on the reason why his "door was always open". This is consistent with the story, as the narrator commented earlier in the story that he was going to record his observations in case he did not survive. It takes him a half-page long paragraph to do this, when he could have used a paragraph the size of the previous one. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. He does so in brackets, though, so as not to appear to detract from the descriptive nature of the paragraph. Never locked means just that: never locked. Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Poe uses the first-person point of view to write the majority of his stories, and all of the stories from which excerpts have been taken were written in this way. When humans speak from their own point of view, they undoubtably will give an opinion of some sort, whether it is noticable or not. There are many advantages to using the first-person in stories, and these are especially evident when the narrator is required to describe a scene. It is unusual in his works to find a detailed description this short however. As we were almost constantly on a wind, and the breeze was not a little stiff, the ship heeled to leeward very considerably; and whenever her starboard side was to leeward, the sliding door between the cabins slid open, and so remained, nobody taking the trouble to get up and shut it.
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Acceptance Essays
