Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Massachusetts. His contributions on literary works have made him famous as American poet, writer as well as an editor. Basically, he was lived during the era of “romantic movement” and best known for his of mystery and macabre. However, he also developed his creativity by producing detective fiction and science fiction books. Mr. Edgar had going through hard moments in his life when his parents died at his early age and taken into adoption by John and Frances Allan. Furthermore, Edgar Allan Poe had chosen to attempt military career after spent short period of time in University of Virginia. Sadly, he was “taken” away at the age of 40 without any justified reasons but has been attributed to brain congestion, cholera and drug abused.
“Oval Portrait” is among his best masterpiece. As read the story I was stunned and amazed as he able to capture reader’s attention by blended the elements of literature into his writing. Besides, the classical and language used are most captivated and boost myself to write something meaningful and giving impact to my readers. Thus, it sparked the ideas to give reader respond and expressing my own feelings about the story based on my sympathetic and point of view and writing it as my own version. Therefore, I could give my best comments to appreciate his amazing story and at the same time able to persuade my arguments by presenting my critical appreciation on the story. There are several points that I will highlight about the story which are the synopsis, narrator, point of view, setting, plot, literary device and lastly the tone of the story.
The story begins when a traveler who puts a night in a chateau and accidentally found a portrait of a young woman. The portrait discovery has leads to the significance of the story as it sparked traveler’s enthusiastic to find the background “story” behind the painting itself. Thus, he finally found out through the writings on the paintings that the writer is too busy with his work of art until he unnoticed his wife’s need for love and attention.
As I read the story, I do understand that the narrator of this story would be the man or the traveler himself. These are due to several reasons and the most significant point to justify my argument is that he is the one who discover the history behind the paintings and clearly describes the story to readers so that they will get the glimpse of an appealing ambiance regarding the situation he had going through. Besides, the narrator feels that each painting had its own story and needed to be discovered. Thus, after he knows the sad story behind of the portrait, he does feel sympathy towards the young lady in the paintings and assuming that it is unjust for the artists to overlook his beloved’s needs and attention while too preoccupied with the paintings. Therefore, I would definitely agree with the narrator justifications because it is unfair for us to commemorate individual’s passions but ignored the needs of our loved ones.
Additionally, there are three main characters in the short story, which are the traveler (narrator), the lady in the portrait and of course the painter. The traveler is the one who explains the whole story, the woman in the paintings is the one that the painter is trying to immortalized, and the painter is the one that had been so preoccupied with his paintings until he did not realize that his wife is suffering. Generally speaking, the characters in this story did not develop much since the story settings only take place in the room which the narrator had been staying and when he found and revealed past stories of a portrait. In contrast, there are only several descriptions and explanations on the other two characters.
To be clear, settings are part of the literary devices and in “oval portrait”, the story takes place into two types of settings which are place and time settings. Firstly, place setting where it happens in the beginning of the story. The story started in a chateau that the narrator spends a night in. The overall story revolves in the room which he spent his night with. Then, the setting changes to the turret chamber (small tower) where the young lady who to be the woman in the portrait spends her lifetime there. Furthermore, the story consists of two different time setting. Present time settings happened where the traveler stays in the chateau whereas another time setting is when he discovers the past, which became a history. Consequently, the setting of the story is relevant because it did not confusing readers to understand the timeline given by the narrator.
The story begins when a man (traveler) who stayed a night in a chateau enthusiastically exploring the new place by looking at its surroundings. He somehow attracted with the new place and describes it in his own words. “From the least sumptuously furnished apartments to a rich, yet tattered and antique decorations”. Based on his comments about the place he might very particular person and artistic. As he lay on his bed, his eyes accidently caught one of the pictures by one of the bed post. He was stunned by the beauty of the woman pictured in the portrait and tried to figure out about the story behind the portrait. He finally found the history of the paintings saying that the painter tries to immortalize his beloved into paintings until she died without satisfying her needs. The story stops there and perhaps the man when to sleep upon knowing the whole truth about the portrait.
Edgar Allan Poe creates the story without a climate or any adrenaline pump situation. Only by the end of the story, the woman died and it stops there. The plot is well developed but it needs a little bit of a climate to set things up, to make the story more interesting. It confirms to the traditional short story structure because it has all the literature elements. This story is considered to be a tight plot because of only a few events occurred.
Characterization, theme, symbols, plot, setting, tone and synopsis are the elements or literary devices can be found in the story which may help readers to increase their understanding about the story.
The tone of the story is the most sensible part for the readers to assume about the story. Basically, the tone in the story is flat as the writer did not put any climate in his short story. However, at the end of the story the writer tries to emphasize about death and lack of love which create awareness for the readers to feel sympathy upon the lady. The beauty about this short story is when the writer use classical elements where women are always associated with beauty and loyalty. Consequently, the writer wanted to portray how men always put careers as the main agenda until they are tend to overlook their loved one’s need. Besides, the writer portrays sadness and the loyalty of women who always supporting their husband even though they have to sacrifice their own life.
To conclude my reader response, I would like to express my respect to the writer who able to show about the reality of life where men always take for granted their partner. Basically women always been discriminated by men although from their own husband. The strength of the story is when Allan Edgar use classical elements in his works which shows how interesting a story would be with suitable words. However, the story is slightly slacked as Allan Edgar Poe made the story with a tight plot might not create enough interest on readers to read the story, but the story is that it is reliable and make senses to be applied in the present time. As I finish doing my critical appreciation towards the short story, I finally realized that in a single story, literature devices would help reader to response better and have stronger understanding and arguments towards the story itself.
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