American literature | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 6 pages of analysis & critique of American literature.

American literature | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 6 pages of analysis & critique of American literature.
This section contains 1,495 words
(approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Leonard Cassuto

SOURCE: “The Coy Reaper: Unmasque-ing the Red Death,” Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer, 1988, pp. 317-20.

In the following excerpt, Cassuto suggests that Death himself is the narrator in Poe's “The Masque of the Red Death” and explores the thematic implications of this discovery.

Much has been written about Poe's narrators, and with good reason. Nearly always unnamed—and therefore seen as somehow unreliable—they also have disturbing tendencies that range from the unstable and the obsessed all the way to the insane.1 In The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and several other tales, Poe himself even enters into the fiction, commencing the atmosphere of confusion that pervades throughout. All of this indicates that Poe wants us to pay attention to his narrators. If that is his goal, he has succeeded handsomely, but not completely. “The Masque of the Red Death” is a notable exception.2 The story...

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This section contains 1,495 words
(approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Leonard Cassuto
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Critical Essay by Leonard Cassuto from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.