Question

What misunderstandings or inaccuracies involving Gothic literature or Poe's use of suspense do you see? How would you suggest eliminating this problem? If necessary, cross out some words within the text of the essay.

Answer 1

One example of how the writer misunderstands Poe’s use of suspense is stated in the conclusion paragraph. “Personally, I think its strange that people lump Gothic stories into one category. If you know something is Gothic; you know it is going to be suspenseful, which reduces suspense because you know suspense is coming.” This sentence the author used doesn’t stay with the main point and doesn’t support anything they said in the past.  

To fix this problem, I’d delete those two sentences, and rephrase the next sentence in such a way there’s a smooth transition from the last paragraph. So, instead of using this sentence they already had down, “Even so, Poe creates allot of suspense in the story by using more complex tools and narrative choices then just setting the story on a stormy night in a haunted house or medieval castle.” I’d say something along the lines of, “Poe creates suspense in the story by using more complex tools and narrative choices than just setting the story on a stormy night in a haunted house or medieval castle.”

Answer 2

Answer and Explanation:

Although "the black cat", like all of Poe's works, is a great example of Gothic literature, we can find some misunderstandings or inaccuracies that may give the wrong impression about this genre of literature.

One of these misunderstandings is the fact that Gothic literature deals only with mental and personal problems of the protagonists. That's because in Poe's work, the protagonist's problems and discomforts are totally related to his mental imbalance, but Gothic literature can open up external problems, which are not, in fact, caused by psychological problems or imbalances of the characters.

Another misunderstanding is predictability. In Poe's work, horror is a strong element, but suspense is a weak element since we know that the character will decay more and more with the passage of the narrative, which weakens the suspense and can generalize it.