Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. How does Poe
portray the motif of the doppelganger, or character double, in his
two tales of
18
39,
“The Fall of the House of Usher” and “William Wilson”?
2. In “The Tell-Tale
Heart” and “The Black Cat,” what is the relationship between the
confessions of Poe's guilty narrators and their claims to sanity
and reliability?
3. How does Poe
use setting as a Gothic element in “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The
Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Masque of the Red Death”?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. How does Poe use black and
white color imagery in “MS. Found in a Bottle” and “Ligeia”? How
might this use of black and white imagery relate to tensions about
slavery in the mid-nineteenth century?
2. How does Poe portray family
in “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Cask of Amontillado”?
3. How does Dupin demonstrate
his mathematical mind in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The
Purloined Letter”? How does Dupin's analytical mind compare to the
scientific imagination of the narrator from “MS. Found in a Bottle”?
4. Why does Poe have Dupin attempt
to solve such drastically different crimes in “The Murders in the
Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”?
5. What is the role of history
in “The Pit and the Pendulum”? How does the specificity of the tale's
historical placement contribute to its aura of terror?
6. Is the narrator of “William
Wilson” insane? Compare and contrast him with the narrator of “The
Tell-Tale Heart.”
