5。2。1 Distinction of Suspense and Surprise 14

5。2。2 Emotional Response in the Two Novels 14

6。 Conclusion 15

Reference 16

1。 Introduction

1。1 Brief Introduction of Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner

1。1。1 Life Background

Edgar Allan Poe, born in the early 19th century, the originator of American short story, poet, prose writer and founder of psychological literature criticism, is regarded as the greatest writer of horror fiction, who was independent with the mainstream novels。 His works inherited the tradition of Gothic fiction but vested it with psychological vitality。 

Till the 20th century, Gothic fiction is more flourishing, especially in the south of America。 And some writers in the south, including William Faulkner, launched the Southern Renaissance。 Faulkner was heavily influenced by Hawthorn and Allan Poe, and his works were treated as the pathological product of cultural spirit。 Therefore, Faulkner was famous for the grotesque and primarily known for his novels and short stories。

1。1。2 Writing Characteristics

William Faulkner illustrated his complex emotion of both nostalgia and criticism toward his southern hometown, which was basking in a social transformation。 In this novel, Faulkner made creative experiments on the fiction forms and writing techniques to rich the plots, to sharpen the contradictions just in an extremely compressed length。 As a habit of Faulkner’s strategies, he tends to offer the clues in a non-chronological form。 As far as Edgar Allan Poe, he illustrates the plots in chronological order but build the atmosphere straightly by the use of horror words and association。 To make a research into novels, we should first get familiar with their times, families and mental background。

1。2 Brief Introduction of “Setting of Suspense”

Suspense, defined for English-language learners, is a state or feeling of excitement or nervousness caused by wondering what will happen。 Generally speaking, suspense is used at the beginning or in the middle of the fiction。 The author tends to set suspense centering on complex relationship in content or characters, in order to catch the readers’ attention and enter in the situation unconsciously。 Therefore, setting of suspense is both a technique of construction and narration。 

In general, there are five methods of setting suspense (Iwata Y, 2009)。 The first is coincidence。 As an old Chinese saying goes, there is no story without coincidence。 Fictionists tend to use extremely concise words to state the plots so that none of the plots is useless and coincidence should frequently be the best choice。 The second is exalting after eliminating or in opposite order。 This kind of writing technique often makes readers swoon。 Then, it is common that we can see the fatal plot appears at the beginning of a novel in order to catch attention and the rest plots are arranged in chronological order。 Exaggeration of characters and plots can also irritate readers’ mind。 The last common technique is ingenious misunderstanding。来自优W尔Y论W文C网WWw.YoueRw.com 加QQ7520,18766 Just a tiny misunderstanding can cause obviously distinct result。 All in all, these techniques mentioned will be used to illustrate the essay in the subsequent part。

1。3 Literature of the American South

Literature of the American South, also named Southern Renaissance, refers to a kind of serious but tragic literature, which appeared in southern America after American Civil War(Andrews, 1998)。 Southern America is a vague geographical conception。 On account of similarity in location, language, race and climax, the southern states reach the general agreement in social formation, political institution, historical course, values。 Also, it shapes and decides the artistic methods usually applied by southern writers。 Weird is the most typical characteristic in Southern Renaissance, because after the failure of the south in the Civil War, the social darkness during rebuilding the homeland and the venality of capitalism was the rage。 The main representatives of this period are William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Poter, and Robert Penn Warren etc。 However, what is the most controversial is whether Edgar Allan Poe should be regarded as a member of Southern Renaissance, and this topic has been disputed ardently by scholars because Poe chooses a kind of side-looking view to examine and criticize southern social problems all along。