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Life

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. Born in Boston, he was orphaned young after his father abandoned the family and his mother died of tuberculosis. He was taken in by the Allan family in Richmond, Virginia, though he had a troubled relationship with his foster father. Poe briefly attended the University of Virginia and West Point but left both due to financial struggles and was later dismissed from the military. He became a full-time writer, moving between cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York while struggling financially.Poe is famous for poems like The Raven and stories like The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher. He pioneered detective fiction with works like The Murders in the Rue Morgue and influenced gothic horror and science fiction. His personal life was marked by tragedy, including the death of his wife, Virginia Clemm, from tuberculosis. Poe battled poverty, alcoholism, and mental health issues, and died mysteriously in 1849 at the age of 40. Despite his struggles, his work has had a lasting impact on literature and popular culture.

Five Short Story

The Oblong Box

The Oval Portrait

The Masque Of The Red Death

The Man Of The Crowd

The Tell-Tale Heart

The Oblong Box

The narrator recounts a sea voyage where he meets his old friend Cornelius Wyatt, who is traveling with his wife, two sisters, and a mysterious pine box. The narrator assumes the box contains a valuable painting. He is puzzled by the strange behavior of Wyatt’s wife, who leaves her room every night, and by Wyatt's emotional distress.During a hurricane, Wyatt refuses to abandon the ship without the box. When denied, he ties himself to it and jumps into the sea, vanishing. Later, the captain reveals that the box contained the body of Wyatt’s dead wife, while a maid had pretended to be her during the trip.

The Oval Portrait

The narrator, mysteriously injured, takes refuge with his servant in a tower of an abandoned castle in the Apennines. Inside, he becomes captivated by the paintings on the walls and discovers a book that describes each one. After moving a candelabrum, he notices an oval portrait of a young woman and is struck by the lifelike expression on her face. Intrigued, he reads the story behind the painting.The book reveals that the woman was the wife of a painter who was more devoted to his art than to her. She posed for him in the cold tower for weeks as he obsessively worked on the portrait, unaware that her health was deteriorating. When he finally finished the painting, he realized that his wife had died.

The Masque Of The Red Death

The story takes place in a fortified abbey owned by Prince Prospero, who, along with 1,000 nobles, has isolated himself to escape the deadly plague known as the Red Death. While the outside world suffers, Prospero throws a lavish masquerade ball in the abbey, held in seven uniquely colored rooms. The last room, decorated in black with scarlet lighting, creates an eerie atmosphere, and an ebony clock inside causes unease when it chimes each hour. At midnight, a mysterious figure dressed like a victim of the Red Death appears. Enraged, Prospero demands to confront the figure but collapses dead after pursuing it into the black room. The guests, horrified, realize the figure is the embodiment of the Red Death, which kills everyone at the ball. The story ends with the grim presence of "Darkness and Decay and the Red Death" overtaking all.

The Man Of The Crowd

The protagonist sits in a busy London café, observing and categorizing the crowd based on their physical traits and behaviors. He identifies various individuals, including businessmen and swindlers, until he becomes intrigued by an old, frail man whose status he cannot determine. This man seems to possess moral strength and deep anguish. Deciding to follow the old man, the protagonist observes him wandering through the city, returning to their starting point several times. The old man appears fearful of being alone and prefers to stay in the crowd. After nearly twenty-four hours, the protagonist confronts him, but the old man remains indifferent and continues walking. Frustrated, the protagonist realizes he will never learn anything about him, concluding that the man is "the man of the crowd," who cannot endure solitude.

The Tell-Tale Heart

The narrator lives with an old man whose unsettling, pale blue "vulture-like" eye drives him to obsession and a desire to murder him, despite claiming to love him. For seven nights, he sneaks into the old man's room, but the eye remains closed. On the eighth night, he accidentally makes noise and finds the old man's eye open. Panicked, he kills the old man and hides the dismembered body parts under the floorboards, believing he has left no evidence behind. When a neighbor hears the old man's scream and calls the police, the narrator insists it was his own nightmare and that the old man is away. As the police search, the narrator grows increasingly anxious, convinced he hears the old man's heartbeat coming from beneath the floor. Overwhelmed by fear, he breaks down and confesses, urging the officers to lift the floorboards and reveal the remains.

Beowulf

Plot

Beowulf is an epic poem that follows the hero Beowulf as he battles various monsters. The story begins with King Hrothgar of Denmark constructing the grand hall Heorot, which attracts Grendel, a monstrous creature that terrorizes the hall and its inhabitants. To help Hrothgar, Beowulf, a powerful warrior from the Geats in southern Sweden, arrives to confront Grendel. He chooses to fight without weapons, believing that human arms cannot harm the monster. In a fierce struggle, Beowulf tears off Grendel’s arm, fatally wounding him. Grendel retreats to his lair and dies, while Beowulf hangs the arm in Heorot as a trophy.

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Plot

Following this victory, Grendel’s mother seeks revenge and attacks the hall. Beowulf descends into her underwater lair, armed this time. His sword proves ineffective, but he discovers a giant-forged sword, which he uses to kill her and behead Grendel’s corpse.Later, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats and rules for fifty years. His kingdom is threatened by a dragon awakened by a stolen cup from its treasure hoard. In his final battle, Beowulf, now old, fights the dragon to protect his people. Though he slays the dragon, he is mortally wounded. The poem concludes with Beowulf’s death, underscoring themes of heroism, mortality, and the enduring legacy of a great warrior.

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