The oval portrait Mystery

writer may utilize multiple perspectives to illustrate how the “truth” of any incident is always relative to the way in which it is witnessed.

3.1.1. The oval portrait

The oval portrait is short story by Edgar Allan Poe involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a château. It is one of his shortest stories, filling only two pages in its initial publication in 1842. The narrator in this story represents as the first person and the third person. At the beginning of the story, the narrator as the first person describes the situation of mansion and his own condition. The story begins with an injured narrator seeking refuge in an abandoned mansion with no explanation for his wound. There is no clue about how he got hurt, what he did before he found the mansion, and why he could be in the middle of the forest or mountain – called Apennines. Moreover, the mansion itself has got a huge mystery because it is built in the middle of the forest just like the castle of the antagonist character in the folk stories or fairy tales, for example the house of witches or the castle of vampire and so on. There must be something in this mansion that makes the owner decides to abandon it. This is the first mystery that I found in this story. We can see from the quotation below: “THE CHATEAU into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. ...” Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 481 The interior structure of the mansion is very strange, either its shapes or decorations. The previous owner must be an artist because there is a small book in the bedroom which explains about the all of the art works of the mansion. The most mysterious part comes when the narrator sees the Universitas Sumatera Utara portrait of a young maiden which is only a sketch but can take all of his attention toward the portrait. He describes the portrait as if it is a real girl in the frame. When he sees, describes and talks about the portrait, the reader can feel the mystery of this portrait. I can start thinking about why the portrait is so attractive, how the painter can make it looks so alive, whether the artist of this portrait is a very high quality painter or there is some magic in the portrait. “The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the back-ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded and filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself. But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person....” Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 412 The point of view of the narrator changes to the third person narration. As the third person narrator, he tells the story about the history of the portrait. At the beginning of the explanation, it has already had a mystery. The statement at the beginning of the story is telling that it was a big mistake of the young maiden who married the painter. From this statement, we can feel confuse. Because usually, a marriage is a dream for a young maiden like that and it is supposed to be a big happiness, not a big mistake. But we can still find the answer why the writer of the book said so. As we can see from the quotation below: She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter....” Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 483 Universitas Sumatera Utara The biggest mystery of this short story is the portrait of the maiden itself, which makes the narrator, feels so interested in it and how the portrait can become so vividly drawn. However, we still can find the answer at the end of the story, such as the ambition and love of the painter towards art and the love of the maiden towards the painter.

3.1.2. The Black Cat