The System of Dr.Tarr and Prof.Fether

The System of Dr.Tarr and Prof. Fether

The psychological horror story by Edgar Allan Poe

INDEX

References

Narrative techniques

Data of the text

Message

Analysis of language

From text to context

Personal response

DATA OF THE TEXT

Author, Title, Date, Work

GENERAL INFORMATIONS

• Author: Edgar Allan Poe
• Title: The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether
• Date: 1845
• Work:

• Initially published in the pages of Philadelphia' Graham's Magazine.
• When he wrote this Poe was residing in New York City with his wife Virginia, whose health continued to deteriorate due to her tuberculosis, and he worked as an editor at The Evening Mirror and later, The Broadway Journal.

REFERENCES

Title, Setting in time, Setting in place, Characters involved, Situation, Turning points and climax, Plot

Title

Situation, Turning points, Climax, Plot

• The title of the story allows a perfect general representation of the text
• It is precisely from this that the underlying element of which the whole story develops.

• The two types of systems are the conflict in this story. The "Soothing system" where there are actual doctors to help heal the insane patients and the "System of Tarr and Fether" where the patients wander around and are free to do whatever they please.
• The narrator comes upon an old insane asylum with a friend who does not wish to enter. He enters, without his friend, is greeted by the director and gets invited to dinner.
• At dinner, things start getting weird.
• The narrator gets served an out of the ordinary meal and the dinner guest talk about past patients.
• He discovers that the director is crazy along with the patients. He learns about the old system.
• Then monster looking creatures attack them and the guests show how crazy they actually are.
• Then one of the real doctors that works at the asylum regains order in the asylum.
• The climax of the story is when the narrator finds out that Mr. Maillard, the director, was a patient once who later took over the whole asylum and locked away the real doctors and keepers that worked in the asylum underground.
• The resolution in The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether is when one of the real doctors escaped from underground and regained control over Maillard the night he had his dinner party.
• The plot of the story is well structured, organized and studied in detail.
• The twist is placed at the end which makes everything different from what was written before.

Setting in time

• The time in which the action takes place is unknown
• Set in the same century in which the author lived
• We know for sure that it is set in autumn

Setting in place

The place where everything takes place is perfectly described to be a few miles of a certain Maison de Sante or private madhouse that the protagonist met while on a tour through the extreme southern Provinces of France.

Characters involved

• The narrator
• The narrator’s Companion
• Monsieur Millard
• Niece of Millard

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES

Mode, Narrator, Point of view, Presentation of character, Description of character, Type of character

• Psychological Thriller

• The narrator is in the first person so that it coincides with the protagonist, is not absolutely omniscient. It is also unobtrusive. For this it can be considered internal to the story.
• The point of view taken into consideration is essentially that of the narrator.
• The presentation of the characters is almost totally indirect.
• The physical appearance of the various characters is not described apart from some general details. Everything we know about a physical but above all moral description is intuited by paying attention to the various actions carried out, from dialogues and behaviors
• Almost all the characters in the story are flat as they do not make any evolution during the course of the story except for Mr. Maillard who turns from supposedly healthy into something totally opposite.

ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE

Syntax, Vocabulary, Language devices, Language of sense impressions, Style, Tone

PRINCIPAL FEATURES

• The syntax is complex, the sentences tend to be long and in fact we also have a prevalence of subordinates.
• The words used change depending on the person you are talking to and the conversation you are having.
• The senses that are most involved in this story are hearing and sight as in most of Poe’s stories, as was customary in the Gothic period.
• Besides this are used numerous figures of speech and symbols that make it even more peculiar.
• Dramatic irony.
• The System of Tarr and Fethering.
• Poe uses imagery to make the reader feel the same emotion as the narrator.
• The rebellion of the lunatics symbolizes how Poe let the alcohol take over and didn't stay at the University of Virginia, the lunatics are the alcohol taking over.
• The tone as the style is strange, creepy and weird while the mood is uncomfortable, paranoid, and frightening.

MESSAGE

Themes, Author's aim

VS

• The themes are a lot.
• Insanity is a recurring theme in Poe’s works.
• Lunacy by constantly talking about the patients and their strange ways. The guests act strange. By the end of the story, one discovers that these guests were actually patients who escaped from their cells, tarred and feathered the staff and locked them up in cells.

• The story itself is filled less with details of a personal significance, and serves instead as a humorous satire of various historical and social trends of his time.
• Although simplistic in nature, the story holds a greater significance due to the underlying message this rare change from Poe's usual morbidity and horror sends forth.
• Make people feel horror and sublime

FROM TEXT TO CONTEXT

• This story is very linked, as I have already said, to the author in general, to the literary genre under consideration but also the context in which it develops.
• Link to contemporary society .
• The one anachronism that emerges in the story, that in this supposedly French setting for the tale, the musicians choose to play the American tune "Yankee Doodle" upon being invaded by the escaped patients.
• The topic of slavery
• Charles Dickens

PERSONAL RESPONSE

I didn't like the text very much, even though I liked the final twist, because the language was too difficult and also I was struggling to follow the line of reasoning. What I expected was a more violent and creepy presentation of the asylum. Moreover, from reading other texts I can confirm that I prefer his mysteries. Despite this I recognize the genius and indeed believe that Poe is the best in writing horror stories.

THANKS!

Nicole Carlini