摘 要

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Foreign Research Status 2

2.2 Domestic Research Status 2

2.3 Need of the Study 3

3. The Horror Art in “The Black Cat” 5

3.1 Plot 5

3.2 Psychological Suggestion 6

3.3 Symbolic Meaning 7

3.3.1 Black cat 7

3.3.2 Gallows 7

4. The Horror Art in “The Fall of the House of Usher” 9

4.1 Plot 9

4.2 Environmental Construction 10

4.2.1 Natural landscape 10

4.2.2 Characterization 10

4.3 Psychological Suggestion 11

4.4 Symbolic Meaning 11

4.4.1 Miss Madeleine 11

4.4.2 Roderick’s creations 12

5. The Horror Art in “The Masque of the Red Death” 14

5.1 Plot 14

5.2 Environmental Construction 14

5.3 Symbolic Meaning 15

5.3.1 Disease 15

5.3.2 Religious allusions 16

5.3.3 Color 16

6. Conclusion 18

References 20

Acknowledgments 21

Abstract

Allan Poe has a high status in the history of Western fiction and is regarded as one of the originators of detective novels, the master of horror novels and one of the pioneers of symbolism. Throughout the creation of Allan Poe's horror novels, most of the themes on his short stories reveal the dark side of human consciousness and subconsciousness, trying to "explain the spiritual distress of modern people with unrealistic and irrational expressions." This paper selects three representative short stories and tries to further analyze how the horror art in Allan Poe's short stories is meticulously expressed from the perspectives of environmental construction, psychological suggestion and symbolic meaning.

Keywords: Allan Poe; short stories; horror art

中文摘要

爱伦·坡在西方小说史上地位很高，被誉为侦探小说的鼻祖、恐怖小说大师和象征主义的先驱之一。纵观爱伦·坡的恐怖小说创作，其故事主题大都揭示了人类意识及潜意识中的阴暗面，试图“以非现实、非理性的表达方式来揭示现代人的精神困顿”。本文选取其代表性的三篇短篇小说，力图从环境营造、心理暗示和象征意义的角度出发，进一步分析爱伦·坡短篇小说中的恐怖艺术是如何细致地表现出来的。

关键词：爱伦·坡；短篇小说；恐怖艺术

Introduction

Edgar Allan Poe (1809~1849), an American writer, editor, and literary critic, is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his stories of mystery and horror. Poe is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of short stories. He is often considered the inventor of the type of detective novel and is further believed to contribute to the emerging science fiction.

Poe and his works have influenced literature in all parts of the world, as well as in the fields of cosmology and cryptography, which often appear in the pop culture of literature, music, and films. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America has presented an annual award for the outstanding work of the mysterious genre, known as the Edgar Award.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Foreign Research Status

Allan Poe is an influential and controversial writer in the history of American literature. For 170 years, the Western literary critics have never given up on Poe for three reasons: First, he is a controversial writer. People have mixed opinions on him. Many great writers from different periods gave different evaluations, for instance, Bernard Shaw said that, "There are two great writers in the United States -- Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain".

Foreign scholars' research on Allan Poe for more than 170 years is roughly divided into three stages (Li, 2007: 13): from the pre-life to the end of the 19th century, the first stage, except for a few poems, Poe's works and his own in the United States are generally accused and rejected. In the United States, with strong moral consciousness, only Poe's poetry creation was recognized by the critics, and Poe's debauched life and his weird and perverted novel theme were widely rejected and accused by the literary world. In the experience of industrial repression, Britain and France, which were full of decadent feelings at the end of the century, Poe and his works became a symbol of resistance to modernization and received extensive attention from the literary world. From the early 20th century to the 1960s is the second stage, Poe's novels gradually became the focus of research. And the third stage is from the 1970s to the present: the multi-polarization trend has been gradually emerging. After the impact of various post-modernism and post-structuralist theories, the interdisciplinary nature of Allan Poe's research is also increasingly evident in political science, economics, sociology, art, anthropology, criminology and even medicine. The participation formed a vivid situation. Globalization process has further expanded the influence of Poe on the literature and culture around the world.

2.2 Domestic Research Status

Allan Poe's works and literary theories had an impact on China's literary world, especially before and after the "May 4th" New Culture Movement in the last century, Poe’s works played an active role in the anti-feudal struggle that was carried out at that time. After the liberation, people classified Poe’s works as decadent and basically stopped studying his works. After the reform and opening up, China's research on Poe has been greatly developed, and many scholars and experts have also studied him and his works. The domestic research of Poe's works mainly began after the 1990s. There were only sporadic studies before this. After the 1990s, there was a boom in the study of horror novels in China, and a large number of outstanding original horror writers emerged during this period. The study of Poe covers a wide range of topics, including literary theory, content structure, language analysis, and his life background.

As far as the research content is concerned, domestic scholars pay more attention to the theme of "death", as well as to the study of language style and artistic characteristics. In the early period, most domestic scholars focused on the theme of death in Allan Poe's novels, especially the theme of "the death of a beautiful woman". The phenomenon of repeated research was more serious. In recent years, domestic research has also appeared to be diverse. For example, when focusing on the theme of death, it is no longer limited to the connotation of the theme of death, but extends to the exploration of the relationship between the theme and the expression of the works. In addition, scholars have begun to pay attention to the theme of split personality, modernism, human nature, love, password and so on in Allan Poe's novels.

2.3 Need of the Study

As for the need of the study, many researchers have classified Poe's works as Gothic novels and explored the Gothic elements or horror styles in his novels. Other researchers used Poe's most famous literary theory, unity of effect (which Poe believed that good literature must create a unity of effect on the reader and this effect must reveal the truth or evoke emotions) to interpret the overall artistic effects of his novels and conduct specific text analysis. However, the horror art in Poe's short stories is not only reflected in the creation of the overall atmosphere, but also in detail and in psychological aspects. In light of this, the purpose of thesis is to further analyze how the horror art in Allan Poe's short stories is meticulously expressed from the perspectives of environmental construction, psychological suggestion and symbolic meaning.

3. The Horror Art in “The Black Cat”

3.1 Plot

The story is presented as a first-person narrative using an unreliable narrator. He is a condemned man at the outset of the story. The narrator tells that he has always loved animals since he was young. He and his wife have many pets, with a large, beautiful black cat named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. After coming home completely intoxicated one night, he believes the cat to be avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in drunken anger, he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife and deliberately gouges out the cat's eye.

Since then, the cat flees in terror at his master's approach. At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty. In another fit of drunken fury, the narrator takes the cat out in the garden one morning and ties a noose around its neck, hanging it from a tree where it dies. At that night, his house mysteriously catches fire, causing the narrator and his wife to flee from the premises. The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the apparition of a gigantic cat, with a rope around the animal's neck.

Sometime later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern. It is the same size and color as the original and it also lost an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the animal's chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to fear and loathe the creature, due to the fact that it amplifies his feeling of guilt. After a time, the white patch begins to take shape and forms the shape of the gallows, much to the narrator's horror. This terrifies and angers him more, and he avoids the cat whenever possible. One day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new house, the cat gets under its master's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs. His rage amplified by alcohol, the man grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat but is stopped by his wife − whom, being unable to take out his drunken fury on the cat, he kills instead. To conceal her body, he removes bricks from the next wall, places her body there, and repairs the hole. A few days later, when the police show up at the house to investigate the wife's disappearance, they find the black cat and the corpse

3.2 Psychological Suggestion

The novel adopts the first-person perspective and recites himself as a criminal. At the beginning of the story, the narrator says, “For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief…” (Poe, 2016: 363), implying that he has already been accused of madness."I", a person who was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition (Poe, 2016: 363), actually killed my cherished black cat and wife. Poe shows the horror step by step as the story unfolds. Like the subjective lens in the movie, Poe creatively uses the "confessional monologue". The protagonist is afraid of being tortured and claims that he is not crazy, but in the reader's opinion, his spirit already has a problem. This delicate and profound inner description is internalized into the reader's own feelings. Subjective consciousness realizes free flow. The reader is forced to accept the protagonist's abnormal personality and abnormal psychological changes while being immersed in the situation. The entire reading experience is like riding a roller coaster, losing control, and the spirit has been beyond the flesh, and the layers of terror have penetrated into the inner mind of the reader. In the subjective narrative perspective, the narrator does not actively provide clues to the readers, which indirectly enhances the mystery of the novel and undoubtedly adds readability to the novel.

Pluto was originally the favorite pet and playmate of the protagonist, but after a big drunk, "I" dug one of its eyes because of Pluto's little resistance. The black cat's one-eyed symbol gives insight into the vicious inner power of the person. When "I" wakes up and regrets, an abnormal mindset appears, but finally “I” hang the black cat. On that very night, the house was on fire. There is a shallow relief on the wall of the mud, which is a huge cat. This is actually an illusion produced by the protagonist, a horrible psychological suggestion.

3.3 Symbolic Meaning

3.3.1 Black cat

There are two black cats in the novel. The whole story is also based on the contest between the protagonist and two black cats (Wang, 2016: 244). In the novel, the black cat is not only a simple "thing", but also a symbol of terror. It makes the protagonist always in terror, indirectly showing stimulated fear.

"Black Cat" is made full use of symbolic techniques to create a horrible image of death. The black cat in the novel is a unique animal image with emotion and intelligence. In Western culture, the black cat is regarded as evil not only because it is always accompanied by a witch. Poe has repeatedly stressed that "all black cats are camouflaged by witches", showing that the black cat image has an implicit meaning, mainly reflected in two aspects: the first cat and its eyes, and the second cat has white spots on its chest. The name of the first black cat, Pluto, symbolizes death in Greek mythology, casting a shadow of death on the story. And black itself symbolizes evil, darkness, and horror, which makes the novel's horror color stronger.

3.3.2 Gallows

When adopting the second cat, the protagonist described it as follows: "It was a black cat—a very large one—fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one…"(Poe, 2016: 368) In the later development of the plot, the cat's white spot showed a clear outline, is an image of a GALLOWS. The narrator has already had an illusion, feeling that the cat has been pestering him, always reminding him to kill the first cat. Gallows are used to kill prisoners, symbolizing justice and law and they also symbolize the ropes that hang the first cat, causing the protagonist's sin and fear. The second cat came to avenge and torture the protagonist. It was the cat that used the trick to induce "I" to kill wife, and later used the wailing to inform the police. Poe uses the second black cat to paint the inner activity of the protagonist's irritability, anger and horror. “During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear…” (Poe, 2016: 370) [2] The black cat has become the symbol of the protagonist's remorse and nightmare. It has also become a symbol of revenge. The reader come to have a strong empathy with the protagonist.

The final scene undoubtedly pushed the fear to a climax:"The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore..." (Poe, 2016；374) At this moment, the black cat has become the opposite of human beings, as if it is a resentful revenge, and the protagonist's rational annihilation has reached the peak, he lost his humanity. "I determined to wall it up in the cellar—as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims."(Poe, 2016: 371) [2] The protagonist even felt proud of his coup, and showed off to the police. This kind of external scene is so horrible that readers can suppress tension but cannot escape. In fact, only when pain or horror has no practical harm, can we produce a happy mood, which is a kind of "full of joy and horror". The horror has surpassed the sensory level of stimulation, rising to the horror of the soul, and the reader is deeply immersed in the special beauty brought by terror.

4. The Horror Art in “The Fall of the House of Usher”

4.1 Plot

The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. As he arrives, the narrator notes a thin crack extending from the roof, down the front of the building and into the adjacent lake.

Roderick later told the narrator that his sister had passed away and insisted that she be buried for two weeks in the family tomb at home before being permanently buried. The narrator helped Roderick put the body in the grave, and he noticed that Madeleine's cheeks were rosy. The following week, Roderick and the narrator found themselves getting more and more excited, for no apparent reason. A storm began. Roderick came to the narrator's bedroom, which was situated directly above the vault, and throwed open his window to the storm. He noticed that Tarn around the house seemed to glow in the dark because it gleamed in Roderick's paintings, though there was no lightning.

As the narrator relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can be heard. Roderick became more and more hysterical and eventually marveled that the sound was made by his sister, who was actually alive when she was buried.

Additionally, Roderick somehow knew that she was alive. Then the bedroom door was opened to reveal where Madeleine stood. She landed on her brother, both of whom landed on the floor as bodies. The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices a flash of moonlight behind him which causes him to turn back, in time to see the moon shining through the suddenly widened crack. As he watches, the House of Usher splits in two and the fragments sink into the tarn.

4.2 Environmental Construction

4.2.1 Natural landscape

At the beginning, Poe depicts the old and broken Usher House and the lifeless external natural landscape: “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens…”(Poe, 2016:375) The location is a crumbling ancient house in the fallen wilderness. It is now being swept by the storm, which undoubtedly creates a horrible atmosphere. As soon as the narrator walked into the ancient house, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded his spirit (Wu, 2015:107). [4]

Moreover, the disintegration of the ancient house also highlights this discomfort: “The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor…And the vault in which Madeleine buried is so ghastly, which had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere…” (Poe, 2016: 379) [2] The cold color, strange shape and Gothic scene project endless fear on human mind, making readers nervous and depressed.

4.2.2 Characterization

Roderick and Madeleine, which are displayed from the narrator's perspective, have a mysterious pathology. “Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion…” (Poe, 2016: 380) This kind of spiritual trait that is different from ordinary people is beyond the reader's basic line of conventional consciousness and gives readers a sense of fear in the subconscious. Perhaps the narrator's own mind is already very fragile, and the reader is led by the narrator's subjective feelings, and even more creepy. Roderick is actually a childhood friend of the narrator. Now he is seriously ill. "I" feels a strange call, but when I meet again, I find that my friends have changed too much, creating a familiar strange feeling.

Roderick is addicted to his own fantasy, and he is also reading related books such as religion. In fact, his rationality has gradually collapsed. Roderick has produced morbid psychological cues and feels that he is bound by the house and becomes superstitious. “To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounded slave. I shall perish … I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost…” (Poe, 2016: 381) [2]

4.3 Psychological Suggestion

From the moment of approaching Usher, Roderick has revealed to the readers that he feels horror all the time. This horror has become more and more serious as the plot develops (Wu, 2015: 108).The narrator is impressed with Roderick's paintings, and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it. Further, Roderick believes that his fate is connected to the family mansion.

Through the delicate and profound inner description of the characters, Poe makes readers unconsciously enter the inner world of "I", internalizing the psychological activities of the narrators into the inner experience of the readers, and promotes the horror experience to aggravate the fear (Geng, 2015: 46).From the author's point of view, people's fear of death not only contain the literal meaning. Death can even be considered neutral, but humans give death too much meaning. It is these meanings that make death less pure. Death is over its definition, and can no longer be discussed as a single word. "Death" in the context has already represented pain, struggle, despair, and represents a void that cannot be known at birth. It represents a farewell to the familiar world and represents a complete nothingness. Death declares that fresh thoughts will dissipate forever, so people are afraid of death. The real fear is actually the consequences of death. There is also a sense of powerlessness that knows that death is about to come, but people feel helpless.

4.4 Symbolic Meaning

4.4.1 Miss Madeleine

Miss Madeleine is the twin sister of Usher. She has not said a word from beginning to end. When the narrator arrived at Usher, she was told that she was about to die, and then she was carried into the gloomy cellar, which was small and wet, with no gaps to penetrate the light. She can be seen as a symbol of death in that every time she showed up; some vitality of Roderick has passed away. Burying his sister also symbolizes Roderick’s self-burial (He, 2012: 52). She only appeared three times in the story, wearing a white dress for the first time and flashing through the corner of the house; she was already lying in the coffin, ”that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death” (Poe, 2016: 390) when she appeared for the second time; the third time was at the end of the story, and she appeared at the door of "I". She is like a ghost, looming, appetizing, and finally wearing a bloody white shroud in front of readers, the horror comes to a peak.

4.4.2 Roderick’s creations

The symbols in the text are reflected in painting, music, poetry and supernatural things. These emotions are concentrated on Roderick Usher, who, like many Poe characters, suffers from a nameless illness that incites him to feel hyperactive. This disease manifests itself in the body, but is based on Roderick's spirit and even moral status. It has been suggested that he is ill because he wants to get sick according to his family's medical history and is therefore basically a depression.

The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the architecture structure and the Usher family, plays a vital role in the story. It is the first "thing" that the narrator introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: its windows are described as "eye-like" twice in the first paragraph. The crack developed on one side symbolizes the decay of Usher's small family, and the house "die" with two Arthur brothers.

“The Haunted Palace” created by Usher actually refers to the house of Usher. The first four sections describe the past of the palace: beautiful, solemn, magnificent, and the king is wise. The last two sections describe the present of the palace: the evil body is wearing a robe, invading the noble territory of the king. The king died, and the splendid palace became pale and gloomy. The past of the palace symbolizes the glorious past of the Usher house, and the current decline symbolizes the decline of the vitality of the house and his house. The abstract painting created by Usher is the impromptu expression of the evil he feels. The scene depicted is the underground cavern, giving the reader a supernatural fear music. The grotesque songs of "Rhapsody" and "The Six Strings" also evoke the acoustic effects of the horror theme. Poe is used to using stage art like the sound, light and color to set off the atmosphere, and to achieve horror effects, making readers feel creepy.

5. The Horror Art in “The Masque of the Red Death”

5.1 Plot

The story takes place at the castellated abbey of Prince Prospero, who together with 1,000 other nobles took refuge in this walled monastery to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague in which terrible symptoms swept the entire land. Victims are overcome by "sharp pains", "sudden dizziness", and "profuse bleeding at the pores", and die within half an hour. Prospero and his court are indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large; they intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut.

Prospero holds a masquerade ball one night to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a scarlet light, "a deep blood color" cast from its stained-glass windows. Because of this chilling pairing of colors, very few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. A large ebony clock stands in this room and ominously chimes each hour, upon which everyone stops talking or dancing and the orchestra stops playing. Once the chiming stops, everyone immediately resumes the masquerade.

5.2 Environmental Construction

The stories of Poe usually take place in wilderness, ruins, castles, broken houses, cellars, and the scenes are usually gloomy, damp, and terrifying (Zhang, 2011: 102). And in “The Masque of the Red Death”, the narrative space is a castle. “This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste.” (Poe, 2016: 403) [2] And the prom venue is set in seven connected but carefully separated rooms. Each of the first six rooms is decorated and illuminated in a specific color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet.

Poe gives the material vitality and willingness, and the reader can't help but feel that there is some power in controlling them. In addition to the first and last paragraphs of the novel, Poe uses the ambiguous reference, and echoes the changes in the perception of the Red Death Demon, highlighting the mystery of the appearance of the Red Devil. When people gradually realize the existence of the Red Death, it is too late, and their fate is completely in the hands of the Red Death. It is a horrible experience from numbness to awakening.

Otherwise, a huge black clock in the room embolizes the sound of death. There is only a medium of sound, and the messenger does not appear (Tao, 2015: 92). The sound is emitted with a kind of occult and uncontrollable, adding a mysterious and fearful atmosphere to the reader. The dull, monotonous and dignified voice swayed from side to side, causing the crowd panic and nervous every hour. People's hearts are actually full of fear. The sound of the bell makes this fear externalized. The bell reminds people that death is inevitable after all, even though they are now extravagantly carnival. But terrible bells every night will wake up the death. The arrival of midnight represents the end of the day, and it also implies the end of the life of the people who participated in the dance. When the last guest died, the clock stopped turning, and red death began to rule over.

5.3 Symbolic Meaning

5.3.1 Disease

The disease called the Red Death is fictitious. "There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution."(Poe, 2016: 403) [2] The signs of the Red Death are pain, dizziness, and erythema. Red Death itself represents horror and death. The whole process from infection to morbidity to death is half an hour. On the occasion of the death of the Red Death, the Prince led thousands of knights and women to live in a castle house and held a masquerade. The multiple single-toned rooms may be representative of the human mind, showing different personality types. The imagery of blood and time throughout also indicates corporeality. The plague may, in fact, represent typical attributes of human life and mortality, which would imply the entire story is an allegory about man's futile attempts to stave off death.

5.3.2 Religious allusions

The ballroom was set up in seven connected but carefully separated rooms. This reminds the reader of the meaning of the Western number “7”. In English-speaking countries, “7” has gradually become a sacred and full of mystery. The number of colors, which has a wide and profound influence on the culture of the West and the whole world, such as "seven sins", "seven sacraments", and God creates the world in seven days. The seven rooms are arranged from east to west, which is reminiscent of the sun's rise and fall, a complete life process.

5.3.3 Color

“But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tined panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look…”(Poe, 2016: 405) [2]Everything in the western room is black, and the black velvet is covered in dense layers from the ceiling to the walls. There is no daylight and it is terrible. Only the window glass is scarlet, a deep blood color, naturally associated with red symbolizes blood, and blood is actually a symbol of the red death (Xie, 2017:72). Blood, emphasized throughout the tale, along with the color red, serves as a dual symbol, representing both death and life. The concealed figure underscores this—it has never been explicitly said to be a red death, but only a reveler of red death costumes - making him appear in the eastern room, which is a blue color, usually associated with birth.

Although Prospero's castle is meant to keep the sickness out, it is ultimately an oppressive structure. Its maze-like design and tall and narrow windows become almost burlesque in the final black room, so oppressive that "there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all"(Poe, 2016: 405). Additionally, the castle is meant to be an enclosed space, yet the stranger is able to sneak inside, suggesting that control is an illusion.

In the story, Prince Prospero chased through seven rooms to catch up with the mysterious man dressed as the "Red Death Devil", but died in the last room, and the revelers fell one after another in a pool of blood. The process, from east to west, symbolizes people live from birth to death. And the dark house is an ominous end. People’s fear of the dark house is their fear of death.

6. Conclusion

Poe focuses on the unusual terror of the external natural scene. This kind of horror gives the reader the greatest and most frequent stimulation in the senses, making them feel like a master, and feels fear involuntarily; but the heart also understands that danger does not really happen to him (Cao, 1999:88). It is kind of "grotesque aesthetic pleasure". Through the narrative of the first person, the authenticity of the story is increased, and the distance between the reader and the text is reduced. The root of terror is actually from the inner world of mankind.

This thesis analyzes three short stories of Allan Poe’s horror novels: “The Black Cat” “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Masque of the Red Death”. In addition, the thesis focuses on what causes the feeling of horror, which is not only reflected in the creation of the overall atmosphere, but also in environmental construction, psychological suggestion and symbolic meaning.

The eternal theme of Allan Poe's horror novels is the horror of death, the melancholy horror, and the supernatural horror. Scenes are often associated with abyss, castles, darkrooms or storms, with Gothic elements (Sun, 2015: 8). The dark and narrow confined space visually gives the reader a feeling of oppression and pressure. In the environment, the reader is nervous, and Poe describes the unbelievable grotesque events and horror scenes in the novel. The reader cannot help to produce psychological cues, eager to know in depth what kind of story will happen, and a kind of fear and excitement mix together. In Poe’s stories, it seems that everyone's psychology is not normal. There are psychologically distorted madmen, nervous and frail patients. And Poe is keen to use the first person's narrative, which undoubtedly adds to the realism of the story and makes the reader feel involved. The intention of choosing in Poe's novels is not novel, but there are many hidden meanings. The readers have hinted through the psychological hints and then grasped the symbolic meaning of intentions. In fact, they have already involuntarily brought themselves into the horror of the soul.

Lastly, it is hoped that this research will bring some inspirations to researchers on the relevant study of the horror art in Poe’s stories. The association of the horror art from the whole integrity is both of provoking thoughts and of great research value.

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Acknowledgments

Upon the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the people who have helped me during the process of my writing. Without their generous help, the thesis would not have been finished.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Zhu Li, who influenced me with her insightful ideas and meaningful inspirations, guiding me with practical academic advice and feasible instructions. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.

My sincere gratitude also goes to the prestigious and distinguished teachers of Foreign Language School in Nanjing Tech University, whose splendid and diversified lectures have empowered me with solid language capability and upright academic attitude.

Lastly, I would like to express my special thanks to my families and friends, whose care and support motivate me to move on. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in helping me solve my problems during the difficult course of the thesis.