Edgar Allen Poe is infamously known for his stories of suspense and horror. The 19th century author strategically develops brooding and menacing tones in his stories with a use of intricate and dark language, the constant and menacing threat of death or suffering, and heavy implementation of Gothic genres. A noticeable aspect of Poe’s writings, as mentioned, is his language. The word choice used in his stories and poems are haunting and, typically, quite difficult. For example, in the short story Ligeia, he writes “The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and unsocial region of the country.” Poe manages to create entire stories with words of dark and horrific connotations or definitions. Words like “phantasmagoric”, which he uses in a few of his stories, one being “The fall of the House of Usher” as well as another being “Ligeia” are so unordinary it causes the reader to pause and ponder, and subsequently develops the feelings of dread and supernatural that Poe to cleverly plays with. Poe also has a tendency to create sentences that build on themselves with a generous use of commas and dashes. “It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution -- perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel.” (The Pit and the Pendulum) The use of dashes give the narrator the ability to expand on a certain thought. The majority of Poe’s stories are told in first person, and the Narrator often goes through some sort of mental breakdown, so an in-depth and intimate look into the narrator’s thoughts is necessary. The use of the commas also adds suspense to the text, which is vital in a horror story as suspense creates fear of what is coming. By slowing down his dialogue with commas in lines such as “Yet, for a while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges.” (The Pit and the Pendulum) the reader is left hanging for a moment when he interrupts his diction with “I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw” There are also many aspects that the majority of Poe’s stories share. For instance, there is numerous counts of death in his stories, but many of them appear to be the death of women. This can be attributed to the fact Poe’s mother died of tuberculosis at a young age. Also, on the topic of death, Poe also has many themes of reanimation of the dead. In the Fall of the House of Usher, Madeline “comes back from the dead” while in the tell-tale heart, the narrator believes to hear the heart beat of the dead man beneath the floor boards. Edgar Allen Poe, while one of the most complex and innovative writers of his time, had an extremely unique and obvious style. It would be simple for someone who has read even one of his poems or stories to pick up on his style if they were to read another work of his. His overbearing fascination with death and suffering, beautiful language that inspires fear in the reader, and first person narratives of the mentally unstable are key features in Poe’s stories. All aspects considered, Poe was, and is, undoubtedly one of the most ingenious Gothic and horror story authors to date. The Man in the Moon I had, at an earlier time in this miserable life, been a man of sanity and rigid composure. I shall reveal, with no truthfulness or sincerity withheld, the extremes of woe and agony that pervade my past - - though few have been buried deep in the darkness of my heart, which I account for the spiraling downfall that has lead me to this moment in time. For what may be left to be said of my sanity - - lest the world think of me as a cold hearted murderer - - it was, and never would be, the intention to murder my darling sister. She was such a pretty gem, her eyes would illuminate in the darkness like a sapphire being touched by the moonlight, her golden hair typically braided - a braid not unlike that of a noose -, wrapped around her delicate neck and often wistfully flew upon her ruby red l