Mood of Obsession in Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe Essay Example

that the narrator explains and feels.

These words all help stress the narrator’s feelings of anxiety and confusion. Toward the end of the story, Poe uses the words “hideous” and “vain” which also adds to the mood of doom. Generally, the diction Poe utilizes helps to assort the story’s mood of hopelessness. Description is another literary device that Poe takes advantage of, but especially in “Berenice. ” The mood of the story is dismal and gets more and more nerve-racking as the story goes on. The gloomy way he describes himself and the beautiful way he describes Berenice adds to the mood of perplexity.

For example, Poe writes of Egaeus and Berenice: “I ill of health and buried in gloom-She, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy” (1). This description makes the reader believe that Egaeus may not be attracted to Berenice, adding to the mood of confusion and opposition. Poe later describes his disease, saying “This Monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in metaphysical science termed the attentive” (2).

This very specific and worrisome description tells the reader that not only is our main character intelligent and witty, but he is also reaching the brink of insanity which creates a very frightening mood. The teeth, which have been slowly driving Egaeus mad and making him continuously attentive, are described as “Not a speck on their surface--not a shade on their enamel--not an indenture in their edges--but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory” (2).

Poe’s well-known use of specific and bleak description

is used greatly in “Berenice,” working in combination with other literary devices to create a mood of panic and despair. Apart from diction and description, Poe also creatively uses syntax as one of his main literary devices. The mood of “Berenice” is dark and eerie, and the syntax proves this as the story progresses. Throughout the entire story, Poe uses em-dashes to intensify the detail of each sentence and to help the reader comprehend the repetitiveness and irregularity of his thoughts.

For example, in paragraph four, Poe says, “Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls— Yet differently we grew” (1-2). The fact that Poe points out that Berenice and Egaeus grew up differently despite their shared home shows that the differences between the two characters are not only important but necessary in the understanding of the mood. This sentence structure continues to make appearances through the entire story. Poe later says, “In the meantime my own disease—for I have been told that I should call It by no other appellation—my own disease…” (2).

The emphasis on “for I have been told that I should call it by no other appellation” through the use of em-dashes, demonstrates the mood of loneliness and hopelessness that not only Egaeus feels but the reader as well. Towards the end of the story, Poe writes, “Through the gray of the early morning – among the trellised shadows of the forest at noon-day – and in the silence of my library at night, she had flitted by my eyes…” (3). Again, Poe is specifically calling out the feeling all around the home

as Berenice makes an appearance which creates a mood of vividness and anxiety.

Poe’s odd syntax in the short story gives succor in building the mood of fear, bewilderment, and panic. Edgar Allan Poe’s compilations almost always exhibit moods of despair or sadness, but “Berenice” is one of his works that totally embodies this type of mood. Poe’s story of a delirious, unhealthy, and depressed man has remained a masterpiece over the years and his terror-inflicting diction, gloomy description, and obtuse syntax could easily be the reasons why. “Berenice” will always be one of Poe’s greatest short stories and will forever be praised in American literature due to its memorable mood of hopelessness and insanity.