CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of Analysis
This thesis is based on three short stories entitled The Oval Portrait, The Black Cat, and Berenice which are considered into literature.
Literature is very complex to be defined. As cited in Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature:
Literature: [Latin: litterature, writing, elements of elementary education, literature, a derivative of litteratus versed in
literature, cultured]. 1 Archaic knowledge of book; literary culture. 2 The production of literary work especially as an
occupation. 3 Writings in proseverse, especially writing having excellence of form or expressions, and presenting ideas
of permanent or universal interest. 4 The body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age. 5
The body of writings on a particular subjects. 6 Printed matter as leaflets, handbills, or circulars.
[Kuiper ed., 1995:686]
Nowadays, two most common modern forms of literary form are short story and novel, which have been in existence for little more than two centuries.
Yet long before the invention of writing, for thousands of years ancient people developed complex oral traditions of literature, for example myths, legends, folk
tales, beast fables, parables, etc. Short story genre had an important influence from the Italian novella of
the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. One of the short story genre is fiction, which have the element of horror, science fiction and detective tales.
Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories ,The Oval Portrait, The Black Cat, and Berenice, belong to horror or usually being called as Gothic short story. Edgar
Allan Poe’s writing is characterized by the sense of mystery, supernatural, brooding human consciousness of death, thrilling and etc. All these elements that
support his writing belong to Gothic novel read: short story as cited in Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature:
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Gothic novel is novel which its imaginative impulse was drawn from the rough and primitive grandocer of medieval buildings
and ruins, such novels were expected to be dark and tempestuous and full of ghosts, madness, outrage, superstition
and revenge. [Kuiper ed., 1995:613]
From this statement, it is clear that in a gothic short story there is an imagination and description which is drawn by the dark and mysterious setting of
an old building and the oddity of characters’ manner. Gothic stories are dominated by fear and terror and explores the themes of death and decay. The
Gothic crosses boundaries into the realm of the unknown, arousing extremes of emotion with settings evoking a gloomy, morbid atmosphere while focusing in
doom, destiny and fate. It deals with the dark, the sinister and the supernatural, oftern has symbolic characters such as the helpless female and associates common
images and themes. These elements are intended to create in the reader a feeling that the veil of ordinary life has been torn back to reveal the darker aspects of life.
According to Dictionary of Literary terms Literary Theory, most Gothic novels are tales of mystery and horror, intended to chill the spine and curdle the
blood. They contain a strong element of the supernatural and have all or most of the now familiar topography, sites, props, presences and happenings.
The elements that are clearly characterised in these three short stories are mystery, horror and madness of the character. Mystery is a work of fiction which
have a mysterious event or unsolve problem at the beginning so that the reader has an opportunity to solve the problem. Horror is a story in which the focus is on
creating a feeling of fear for the reader. While the madness of the character is a change of the character’s attitude from a normal person into an abnormal.
I choose these short stories as the material to be analysed because I am interested in them and also impressed by the way Poe built the atmosphere of
Gothic by using these elements. So by analysing Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories I want to find out the characteristic of Gothic such as mystery, horror and madness
of the character that found in the short stories.
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1.2. Statement of Problem