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oxygen” 6. In this study, death is the physical death, the state when the being organs are not functioned to support the life system of the characters in the
stories. Death in this study also refers to the death of people in Edgar Allan Poe’s life.
3. Short story
Short story is a literary genre of fictional prose narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such as novellas in
the modern sense of the term and novels “Short Story”. Whereas taken from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, short story is:
“Brief fictional prose narrative. It usually presents a single significant episode or scene involving a limited number of characters. The form
encourages economy of setting and concise narration; character is disclosed in action and dramatic encounter but seldom fully developed.
A short story may concentrate on the creation of mood rather than the telling of a story.” “short story”
In this study, the writer would focus on three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe: The Mask of the Red Death, Ligeia, and The Cask of Amontillado.
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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In conducting this study, I present some theories which are relevant to the analysis of the short stories. This chapter consists of three sections to be
discussed: theoretical review, critical biography of Edgar Allan Poe, and theoretical framework. Theoretical review consists of two sub-sections: critical
approach and theory of gothic fiction. Critical approach explains the approach that I applied in this study which is biographical approach. Theory of gothic fiction
explains the features of gothic fiction. Critical biography of Edgar Allan Poe exemplifies the biography of Edgar Allan Poe. Theoretical framework explains
how the theories are applied in the analysis of this study.
A. Theoretical Review
1. Critical Approach
As the imitation of life, literary works are rich of values. This makes people give their response based on their own understanding about the works
Guerin vii. In giving their response to literary works, people apply an approach or approaches depending on what they focus on. Rohrberger offers five
approaches that can be implemented in the study of literature. They are formalist, biographical, socio-cultural historical, mythopoeic, and psychological approach
Rohrberger 3. Since, in conducting this study I applied biographical approach, the following explanation would be only about this approach.
