A Poética do assombro

As mulheres em contos de Poe

Abstract

The scope of this paper is to analyze three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), “Berenice”, “Ligeia” and “Morella” since the construction of the female characters in these productions seem to be a relevant component when considering “The philosophy of composition” (POE, 1999). We also considered, assisted by a deal of critical references, the procedures utilized by Poe, in order to compose these short stories. We tried to establish a dialogue among Baudelaire (1999), Castex (1962) and Cortázar (2006) so as to confirm our analysis. Edgar Allan Poe, through the mastery of his theoretical propositions, uses his short stories as a laboratory not only for experimenting with new techniques but also for building meaning effects. In addition, it is important to emphasize the reiteration of the author’s constant narrative resources, such as repetition, the epigraphs reiterated within the narrative as dialogues and digressions as well as the symbology of names. The author composes with paramount care his short stories; he wraps his characters in such a carefully constructed storyline so that these polyhedral paper beings can also be interpreted as facets of the tormented author himself.