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 they appreciate the dark, nightmarish worlds of human existence with their roots firmly rooted in the ancient past. Edgar Poe's uncanny ability to transcend reality and introduce the reader to the domains of the macabre and the strange is the most compelling reason for the. his enduring popularity, not only in America but around the world. In his "tales of terror", such as "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Black Cat", "The Premature Burial" and The Fall of the House of Usher,” a strange There is an unnerving familiarity with the characters and situations that allows the reader to unconsciously relate to 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe Greek philosopher Aristotle defined tragic drama as "a power capable of exciting pity and fear, or terror... to purify the mind from these passions... to temper and reduce them... is triumphant or victorious over its oppressors or on the object of his frustrations. Since the time of Aristotle, literary purists have devised exclusive definitions of what constitutes tragic drama, yet Poe's interpretation of tragedy comes from his inner self, where primal emotions emerge from deeper recesses of the human soul, which he described as "the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through a veil." If the essence of Poe's macabre tales and the uncanny resided in his inner soul, then a portrait of this essence can be understood through the following scenario: an individual perceives that he is trapped in a hostile environment beyond his control that produces great apprehension despite the lack of specific causes for his fear. At times, he suffers from real threats in his daily life and faces them with ingenuity and courage, sometimes even overcoming his fears by taking revenge against an innocent victim, either violently or through mental torture. Subsequently, 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 a form of moral inadequacy in the afflicted individual, as “within the limits of his human nature, he is incapable of dealing with certain tasks and situations” (Lesky 7). In a series of Poe's "terror tales", the protagonist migrates through one or more segments of the above scenario. In "The Well and the Pendulum" (1842), the protagonist, while under 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 punishment. In “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846), the Montresor suffers and retaliates against seen or imagined threats. In all of these tales, the protagonists' fears or hostilities are brought to an attenuated or final climax because of a tragic flaw that "dooms him...to catastrophe because of his own shortcomings" (Grebanier 227). many of us are often at the mercy of some inexplicable anxiety causedby certain circumstances that are difficult, if not impossible, to deal with it in a logical way. As can be seen by quickly reading any of the stories mentioned, the origin of the protagonist's terrors is graphically described, as in an evil pit, the heartbeat of a dead man, a threatening but tamed creature or even the most feared of all, premature burial. These terrors, however, are usually rejected by the protagonists despite the expected downfall or fatal outcome of the situations. The need to wait in helpless abandonment, as often happens in reality, is thus eliminated. In "The Well and the Pendulum", the unknown protagonist, after receiving "the sentence, the terrible death sentence" from the Inquisition, is imprisoned in a dark and disturbing prison with no apparent exit. His initial fear of being buried alive soon dissipates when he discovers he is trapped in a prison. After identifying the dimensions of this prison, he accidentally falls and finds himself on the edge of a bottomless pit. He then falls asleep and wakes some time later to find, while tied to a structure, that a glittering steel pendulum is suspended above him, whistling back and forth as it descends within inches of his body. For him, death seems inevitable until the pendulum suddenly ceases its movement and retreats into darkness. His situation then becomes more disturbing as the walls of "burning iron" close in on him, causing the dungeon to compress into a lozenge2E As his foothold 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 "phantom trick, Fear", but also inflicts his madness, a "morbid acuteness of the senses", on his sister Madeline who is slowly dying from some unidentified "family illness". The unknown narrator in this tale attempts to comfort Usher by suggesting that his fears are unfounded, but Usher is convinced that death is imminent, so Madeline dies suddenly ("Mrs. 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 chamber, where she falls dead in his arms like "a corpse and a victim of anticipated terrors." The narrator quickly flees the house as the "deep, dark pool" swallows "the fragments of the House of Usher." In "The Tell-Tale Heart", perhaps the most famous of Poe's "tales of terror", the protagonist is assailed by fears without recognizable foundation; his paranoia is unfounded, yet he suffers from these false delusions. Consequently, he proceeds to take these fears out on an innocent “old man… who had never wronged me… had never insulted me.” Then he realizes that his fears are directly linked to the old man's "Evil Eye" ("One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture: a pale blue eye, with a film over it") which drives him to "take the life of the old, and thus rid myself of the eye forever." The victim is then killed in his sleep and his dismembered body ends up under the floor of his bedroom. But the protagonist succumbs to his guilt and confesses his crime to the local police--"I admit it!--tear up the boards!--here, here!--it's the beating of his hateful heart!" the plot takes place in "The Black Cat" in which the protagonist is haunted by maddening and hostile feelings without a recognizable cause. His wife is friendly and happy and shares his love for animals, especially their cat Pluto. The., 1983.