Find what you can in the short story to describe the setting in the text.

• Written in 1843;
• Published in Massachusetts;
• The man’s bedroom had a squeaky door with a latch;
• The plan of the murder went on for about a week;
• Every night, the narrator would go to the old man’s house ‘about midnight;”
• It was dark in the house;
• There was a bed in the bedroom;
• The room had shutters/curtains;
• The house had a chimney that often made sounds in the wind;
• The bedroom had a wooden plank floor with a gap underneath;
• There was also a tub in the bathroom;
• The house has neighbours;
• When the police arrived it was four in the morning.

Explore the extent to which Poe uses common elements of the gothic setting and explain the effect that this has on the text.

Throughout the text, Poe has left the reader with very little to determine about the setting which adds to the mystery of the story. However, what he does leave gives us just enough to conjure up a fairly universal idea of where these events take place.

Very prominent throughout the text is the contrast of light/dark imagery. We are informed that every night the narrator went to the old man’s house around midnight to check if the eye was open. On top of this, we are also told that the house was very dark, being late at night and also being a room with shutters of some kind. To observe the man’s ‘eye,’ they have to use a lantern set at a very low flame. This kind of language very easily makes us imagine the high contrast of this gothic tale.

There are a few strong auditory images throughout the story as well. The narrator reports that the old man’s chamber door is squeaky and that the chimney often makes noise in the wind. The beating of hearts is also a hugely significant piece of evidence for the text, as it becomes a driver of the narrator’s madness. However, all of these sounds are described as low in volume and very dull.

Overall, Poe paints an image of a very still, lifeless setting. However, it seems almost anything but. The way that the narrator tells the story makes this bedroom a place with a very tense mood.