One of the scariest things about schizophrenia is the uncertainty of how the person will act in any given situation. Much like in the poem, schizophrenia is a lot of chaos and confusion with little understanding from those closest to you. “Certain doors were locked at night,” (line 5). This line informs the reader that members of the household are afraid of the schizophrenic, and afraid of what the schizophrenic is capable of doing while everyone else is asleep. Schizophrenia is a mental illness for which there is no cure.
The theme of Poe's '' The Premature Burial " is the terror of awaiting an unknown fate. Poe suffers from catalepsy, a physical condition in which the individual cannot move or speak for hours or, in extreme cases, for months. The 1800's had very few methods when discerning the patient dead or not, this lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths. So frightened himself of the potential fate, Poe resorted to stay awake as much as he could. Eventually Poe falls asleep as it is vital for humans, and the suspense suddenly surrounds the reader.
Now that we know he is going to go out onto the ledge, we begin to start thinking not if he is going to die, but when he is going to die. As the pace of the book picks up we see that Finney uses the apartment and time of night to indicate suspense. He uses the time of day, which is night, to create suspense. As we all know, most scary stories happen at night! Finney then continues on with Tom putting on a jacket, exiting the window of
MacCaig then switches from morning to night and his opinion of the city takes a turn. ‘Uncivilized darkness’ suggests to us that he doesn’t like the night, darkness is usually associated with uncertainty and evil. Finally he ends the first verse by taking about all the small lights you can see from the skyscrapers. This contrasts against the darkness he previously mentioned. In verse two he continues with the theme of darkness by saying, ‘midnight is so not so easily defeated’ referring to the lights from the windows.
3.05 Fascination with Fear Part A The theme I developed from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial” is Man must ignore the darker possibilities in life in order to survive. Examples from the text include the narrators experience he told about in the story. He awoke to the smell of dirt, nothing but darkness, the feeling of wood all around him, and silence of a sea that overwhelms. Since he cannot open the coffin he thinks he is in, he realizes that he must have fallen under an attack catalepsy in the presence of people who knew not of his condition. He screams, then to be shaken by four people, making him realize he is really in the tiny sleeping berths of a ship.
The rats crawling everywhere because the environment was not clean and unsanitary was frightening to see. Sassoon wanted to know what went through the soldiers mind before an attack occurred The hard rain hitting the floor at night and waking up to the sunlight to do everything all over again proved that they didn’t know when war was going to over. Sassoon asks the reader what they remember and it is clear that can recall everything because war can never be forgotten, the impact was just that strong. He asks if they ever thought about war occurring again. Those who have died, he asks them to look down and say they will never forget.
The intensity of emotion rises with each refrain, culminating in the narrator's own tortured admission that “nevermore” can he be free of the shadow of grief and sorrow brought by the night's unwelcome visitor. The physical setting of the poem—a dark, December night in a library-like room—as well as repeated references to classical statuary, velvet cushions, rustling draperies, and the rapid beating of one's heart in response to fear of the unknown, are all familiar motifs in Poe's fiction and poetry, as is the archetype of the “anonymous young man” mourning the death of a beautiful young woman. Major Themes In “The Raven,” Poe exploits several themes that are found throughout his creative works, including the tragic death of a
Porphyria’s Lover – Beginnings / Endings The poem opens up at night and with the first few lines sets up a sense of a cold, brooding almost wild discontent that mirrors the Lover’s mood in the beginning of the poem (weather mimics the mental state of the lover) through the use of pathetic fallacy (up to line 5) and personification (‘the sullen wind was soon awake’). Although there is a doubtable feeling of the ominous and that somehow, right from the beginning, the poem won’t have an exactly happy ending, there is an air of Melancholy and desperation about the lover (‘I listened with heart fit to break’) that seems to invite our sympathy. The whole setting is suddenly changed when Porphyria ‘glides’ in and brings in a warmth (‘made the cheerless grate blaze up’) and consequently this changes the whole mood as she ‘shuts out the storm’. The very beginning is more poetic (up to line 5) and when Porphyria walks in there is a large use of imperative verbs (e.g. ‘she shut out’, ‘she rose’).
Line 1: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, A Line 2: Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore – B Line 3: While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, C Line 4: As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door – B Line 5:"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door – B Line 6: Only this and nothing more." B
When reading both poems, readers are placed on edge, feel unnerved and experience uncertainty for the poets and feel equally helpless. In ‘The House’, it states ‘To leave the house dark’ which gives the impression that the vicious and energetic wind is no longer in motion because the sudden stop in the line creates a dramatic and abrupt pause to the energy which was being portrayed by the wind before. This dramatic stop could be mirroring the sudden darkness falling over the house, again, creating a dramatic sense of insecurity as the comforting light fades away. In both poems, caesura or lack of caesura creates a specific affect; in ‘The New House’, on line four, the winds energy is dramatically halted for the account. This lack of caesura conveys the winds, but also the poets, thoughts and the progression of thoughts.