Poe’s Literary Techniques: Color, Terror, and Adaptation
Poe’s Use of Color and Terror
In both stories, every event is highly detailed. Colors play a significant role, providing darkness and terror, especially black and red. For example, in the first story, the color red repeatedly signifies blood, pain, fear, and even evil. It’s also used as an accent color to stimulate people (like Prince Prospero) to make quick decisions, such as when Prospero wanted to kill the man with the red mask.
Similarly, the color black in the second story represents evil, mystery, and terror. The black cat, according to Poe, embodies a mystery of forebodings, devilry, and wickedness. In both stories, colors have similar meanings, helping to create a terrifying scenario.
Poe’s Stories as Blockbusters
Any story by Poe would be a blockbuster for two main reasons. Firstly, most of his books have been bestsellers. This means that he has many followers, so a film adaptation would likely be successful. Secondly, Poe creates moments of magic, terror, darkness, and mystery in every sentence. Transforming those feelings into scenes would be a good challenge for a creative director who tries to capture Poe’s vision, requiring a good production and famous actors.
A Medium’s Business Plan
If I were a medium, I would run a famous business by selling forecasts. If you want to know something that is going to happen, you would first have to pay me ($50 per visit) for the right to know about the deceased. Then, after consulting with dead scientists to answer research questions, I would sell that knowledge. Finally, with all that money, I would become rich.
Key Elements from Poe’s Stories
- No pestilence had ever been so fatal or so hideous (because of sharp pains and sudden dizziness).
- Each hour a particular sound = silence.
- Prince Prospero (a happy and dauntless man).
- Building = magnificent and extensive structure.
- Precautions.
- Fifth or sixth month of his seclusion (masked ball).
- Wild music of the orchestra.
- It was in the last chamber that stood a gigantic clock.
- 12 strokes.
- He came like a thief in the night.
- Candles expired.
Loneliness as a Leitmotif
The story is told in the first person by a middle-aged woman who spends her first Christmas alone in a rented room. The festivity is a perfect occasion to yield to memories and think of past Christmases. However, in the diary, the situation is reversed: a young man is visited by a middle-aged woman who suddenly disappears. He thought she was the ghost, and it was Christmas Eve! We learn that he died on the same evening and his name was the same the boy had told the woman as soon as he entered her room: Francis Randel. In my opinion, loneliness is the leitmotif of the story and the key to interpreting it. Both characters are lonely. The middle-aged woman, who used to be surrounded by loving people, has decided to spend Christmas alone, with no calls for season’s greetings or thoughts for a dear friend or relative. Only books are her friends.
Don Juan’s reputation as a womanizer: he thought he would have to sleep alone for one night because there were no women in Quintero’s house.