Abstract

The two stories, The Fall of the House of Usher and A Rose for Emily, are respectively magnum opus of Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner. These two writers have profound influence in American literature and their works contain Gothic horror. The two fictions separately adopt sequence and reverse order, direct and indirect irony, explicit and implicit description of horror etc. to set suspense. This thesis mainly researches at the skills of settings of suspense in order to solve the problems that how to set suspense in novels and bring readers’ emotion to climax.

Keyword: Gothic; suspense; setting techniques; psychology

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Brief Introduction of Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner-1

1.1.1 Life Background-1

1.1.2 Writing Characteristics-1

1.2 Brief Introduction of “Setting of Suspense”-1

1.3 Literature of the American South-2

2. Literature Review-3

2.1 Researches of Setting of Suspense of The Fall of the House of Usher-3

2.2 Researches of Setting of Suspense of A Rose for Emily-4

2.3 Previous Studies of Setting Skills of Suspense-5

3. Symbolism Function in Comparison-6

3.1 Material Symbols-6

3.1.1 Character Images-6

3.1.2 Item or Environmental Images-7

3.2 Psychological Symbols-7

4. Comparison of Combining Skills of Clues-9

4.1 Literary and Narratological Approaches-9

4.1.1 Narratological Frame as a Whole-9

4.1.2 Four General Types of Producing Suspense Methods-9

4.2 Psycholinguistic and Psychological Approaches-11

4.2.1 Exaggeration of the Characters-11

4.2.2 Time-dependent Psychological Description with Depth-12

5. Psychological Effect Caused by Suspense-13

5.1 The Enjoyment of Outcome Uncertainty-13

5.2 Suspense and Surprise as emotional response in literature-14

5.2.1 Distinction of Suspense and Surprise-14

5.2.2 Emotional Response in the Two Novels-14

6. Conclusion-15

Reference-16