46 pages • 1 hour read
Edgar Allan PoeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Throughout the novel, people, places, and situations are rarely what they seem to be. It is populated by disguises, secrets, sudden shifts, and outright deceptions. In many scenes, characters realize that their initial assumptions about each other are untrue or that a condition they once believed was stable or predictable is, in fact, wildly different than it seemed. The novel uses this tension between appearance and reality to create an absurd narrative universe that mirrors the absurdities of the actual world. Its emphasis on instability and illegibility also places it in a larger literary and philosophical conversation about whether objective truth exists at all and, if so, whether it is accessible to the human mind.
One significant example of the conflict between appearance and reality occurs when Pym pretends to be the dead sailor Rogers in order to take back the Grampus from the mutineers. Peters believes the first mate killed Rogers by poisoning his spirits and water, so Pym decides to “[work] upon the superstitious terrors and guilty conscience of the mate” (51). He takes Rogers’s shirt from his body, rubs white chalk on his face, and even dons a false stomach to mimic the bloated corpse.
By Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream Within a Dream
A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
Berenice
Berenice
Edgar Allan Poe
Hop-Frog
Hop-Frog
Edgar Allan Poe
Ligeia
Ligeia
Edgar Allan Poe
Tamerlane
Tamerlane
Edgar Allan Poe
The Black Cat
The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe
The Cask of Amontillado
The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe
The Conqueror Worm
The Conqueror Worm
Edgar Allan Poe
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Edgar Allan Poe
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
The Gold Bug
The Gold Bug
Edgar Allan Poe
The Haunted Palace
The Haunted Palace
Edgar Allan Poe
The Imp of the Perverse
The Imp of the Perverse
Edgar Allan Poe
The Lake
The Lake
Edgar Allan Poe
The Man of the Crowd
The Man of the Crowd
Edgar Allan Poe
The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe
The Oval Portrait
The Oval Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe
The Philosophy of Composition
The Philosophy of Composition
Edgar Allan Poe