Poe was a master of the short story and narrative poem. He had a gift for suspense and delightfully twisted plots. Edgar Allan Poe has a distinctive and dark way of writing. There is a psychological intensity which is a significant characteristic of Poe's writings, particularly the tales of horror that comprise his works, such as "The Black Cat, "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Tell-Tale Heart", and The Pit and the Pendulum. His mysterious style of writing appeals to passion and sentimentality. His stories tend to have the same recurring theme of death and even violence. His motifs would be the walls or the floorboards, trying to hide bodies and something going wrong; confessions, and even insanity. Poe writes his stories in different ways; sometimes bolding words, using hyphens, and repeating his words. In the end there is something constantly ironic about the stories Poe writes. Poe's writing tends to have a fine amount of violence. "I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it , grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!...I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree...Goaded by the interference into rage more then demonical, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain ( Poe Pg.138-141). In "The Black Cat," the narrator gets inebriated and becomes violent to his best friend and in that instance he gouges the cat's eye out. Later the cat returns and the narrator is not to please to be living around the cat he had done so much damage to, so again he is inebriated and finds himself stumbling over the cat and become flustered and grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat. "With these materials and with the aid of my towel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche...But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply" (Poe Pg. 147). In "The Cask of Amontillado" the narrator does not cause any physical violence but causes mental violence by torturing Fortunato and