Edgar Allan Poe's literary compositions, particularly his tales of terror based on supernatural or psychological manifestations, continue to be highly regarded by a select group of readers who enjoy the dark, nightmarish worlds of human existence with their roots firmly planted in an ancient past. Edgar Poe's uncanny ability to transcend reality and immerse the reader into the realms of the macabre and the strange is the most compelling reason for his enduring popularity, not only in America but throughout the world. In his "Tales of Terror", such as "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Black Cat", "The Untimely Burial" and "The Fall of the House of Usher", a strangeness, a familiarity unsettling with the characters and situations can be felt, allowing the reader to unconsciously identify with the macabre experiences and thoughts of the main protagonists. This ability to transcend the veils of reality and suspend the reader's disbelief is closely linked to Poe's application of tragic drama in his prose writings. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay The Greek philosopher Aristotle defined tragic drama as “a power capable of arousing pity and fear, or terror.. .to purge the mind of these passions. . to temper and reduce them. object of his frustrations. Since the time of Aristotle, literary purists have crafted exclusive definitions of what constitutes tragic drama, but Poe's interpretation of tragedy arises from his inner self, where primal emotions arise from the deepest recesses of the human soul which he describes as “the reproduction of what the senses perceive”. in nature through a veil…the naked senses sometimes see too little, but then they always see too much” (Foye 51). If the essence of Poe's macabre and strange tales resided in his inner soul, then a portrait of this essence can be understood through the following scenario: an individual feels trapped in a hostile environment beyond his control which produces great apprehension despite the absence of specific causes of his fear. He sometimes suffers from real threats in his daily life and faces them with resourcefulness and courage, sometimes even overcoming his fears by retaliating against an innocent victim, either through violence or mental torture. Then he feels remorse for his actions and is emotionally driven to atone for his guilt through confession or by exposing himself to official punishment or self-inflicted agony. This invariably indicates some form of moral incapacity in the afflicted individual, as “within the limits of his human nature he is incapable of coping with certain tasks and situations” (Lesky 7). In a number of Poe's "terror tales", the protagonist migrates through one or more segments of the above storyline. In “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842), the protagonist, in the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition, is presented as the suffering victim; in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" (1843), the protagonist becomes the aggressor who attacks an innocent victim, feels remorse for his act and then absolves his guilt through confession or exposure to a punishment. In “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846), the Montresor suffers and retaliates against seen or imagined threats. In all of these stories, the protagonists' fears or hostilities are brought to a diminished or final climax resulting from a tragic flaw that "condemns him...to catastrophe because of his own faults" (Grebanier 227). But in reality, many of us areoften at the mercy of unexplained anxiety caused by certain circumstances that are difficult, if not impossible, to deal with logically. As a quick reading of one of the mentioned tales shows, the origin of the protagonist's terrors is graphically described, such as in an evil pit, the heartbeat of a dead person, a menacing but domesticated creature or even the most feared of all, premature burial. However, protagonists generally resist these terrors despite the downfall or expected fatal outcome of the situation. The need to wait in helpless abandon, as is often the case in reality, is thus eliminated. In "The Pit and the Pendulum", the unknown protagonist, after receiving "the sentence, the terrible sentence of death" from the Inquisition, is imprisoned in a dark and disturbing dungeon with no apparent exit. His initial fear of having been buried alive quickly dissipates when he discovers that he is locked in a prison. After discerning the size of this dungeon, he accidentally falls and finds himself on the edge of a bottomless pit. He then falls asleep and wakes up some time later to discover, while tied to a frame, that a gleaming steel pendulum is suspended above him, whistling back and forth as it descends a few centimeters from his body. For him, death seems inevitable until the pendulum abruptly stops its movement and recedes into darkness. His situation then becomes more worrying as the walls of “burning iron” close in on him, causing the dungeon to compress into a diamond shape2E. As his foot is reduced to nothing, a hand reaches out and saves him from the hands of his enemies. The famous protagonist, Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839), not only suffers as a victim of the "sinister fantasy, Fear", but also inflicts his madness, a "morbid acuteness of the senses", on his sister Madeline who is slowly dying from an unidentified “family illness”. The unknown narrator of this story attempts to comfort Usher by suggesting that his fears are unfounded, but Usher is convinced that death is imminent, causing Madeline to die suddenly ("the lady Madeline was no more"). Usher proceeds to bury Madeline in the family crypt and soon imagines that he has accidentally buried her alive. His fears of a premature burial are soon realized, as he begins to hear strange movements in the house. Madeline then appears in Roderick's room, where she falls dead into his arms like "a corpse and a victim of expected terrors." The narrator quickly flees the house as the "deep, dark tarn" swallows up "the fragments of the house of Usher." In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” perhaps the most famous of Poe’s “terror tales,” the protagonist is beset by fears with no discernible basis; his paranoia is unfounded, but he suffers from these false illusions. As a result, he begins to express his fears about an “innocent old man…who never wronged me…never insulted me.” He then realizes that his fears are directly linked to the old man's "evil eye" ("One of his eyes looked like a vulture's - a pale blue eye, with a film over it") which prompts him to to “take the old man’s life, and thus rid myself of my eye forever.” The victim is then murdered in his sleep and his dismembered body ends up under his bedroom floor. But the protagonist succumbs to his guilt and confesses his crime to the local police: “I confess to the act! – tear up the boards! – here, here! – it is the beating of his hideous heart! The plot plays out in “The Black Cat” in which the protagonist is haunted by infuriating and hostile feelings without a recognizable cause. His wife is., 1983.