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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the methodology in this study. There are three subtitles in this chapter. They are: object of the study in which the information on
the short stories is presented; approach of the study, discussion on the approaches I applied in this study; and method of the study which tells about the procedures
of gathering and arranging the data used in writing this thesis.
A. Object of the Study
I took three works of Edgar Allan Poe for this literature study. Three of them are dealing with death. The first short story is The Mask of the Red Death
which was first published in 1842. It tells about a dangerous disease called Red Death which attacks a country and causes the victims die. Prince Prospero who
lives in a palace is not attacked by the disease. He locks the palace and after some times he decides to have a party in the palace to celebrate his being secured from
the Red Death. It is a masquerade in which the people attending the party wear masks. Prince Prospero decorates the rooms with different colors: blue, purple,
green, orange, white, violet, and the last one, black. However the guests do not enter the last room colored black because it is gloomy. Everybody is happy until
midnight when a mysterious guest appears in the middle of the crowds. His costume is different from the others. He wears a scary mask, a corpse’s face-like
mask with spots of blood like the Red Death victims. Feeling humiliated by the
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mysterious figure, Prospero tries to catch him. They run throughout the rooms and when finally Prince Prospero can catch the figure, he falls and suddenly dies.
Other guests try to attack the figure but they find nobody inside the mask and cloak. Finally all of them die because the Red Death has come inside the palace
The Mask of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe: A Collection of Stories. The second short story is Ligeia which tells a story of Lady Ligeia who is
so beautiful. The narrator describes Lady Ligeia as tall, slender, and, in her later days, emaciated. The narrator is so obsessed with Ligeia, however as time goes by
Lady Ligeia becomes mysteriously ill and just before her death she asks the narrator to read a poem. She dies at the same time as the narrator finishes reading
the poem. The narrator feels very sad then he moves to England where he soon marries another woman, Lady Rowena. During the first month after marriage, the
narrator knows that Lady Rowena does not like him and soon after that, the narrator starts to do evil thing by giving poison to Rowena. He wants her Lady
Ligeia back. Day by day, the condition of Lady Rowena gets worse and finally dies. The next day after Lady Rowena’s death, the narrator sits alone beside her
corpse but his mind is thinking about the memory of Ligeia. Something strange happens that night, the narrator sees that Lady Rowena is showing signs of life but
only in a very short time. However the memory of Lady Ligeia fills his mind but then suddenly he is so shocked for the corpse stands up and moves to the middle
of the room. The narrator is sure that it is the corpse of Lady Rowena but it seems different. He glances to the figure with black hair as raven. He is sure, that it is
Lady Ligeia who is standing in the bridal room Ligeia, Edgar Allan Poe: A
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