EdGAR ALLAN POE * TH3 FALl 0F TH3 H0uS3 0F U$H3R*

Rosie Charles
Edgar Allan Poe
The House of Usher
AP ENG II


The Fall of the House of Usher, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is one of the usual mysterious stories of this era. By usual I mean the writing style, which is Gothic. Edgar Allan Poe is infamous for he gory, scary, and evil filled stories. In this particular story, the theme definitely meets the status quote


As readers know very well, Poe is a very detailed writer. Not only detailed with diction, but detailed visually. In this short story, Poe uses the concept of imagery to demonstrate the environment of the story. For example: “the simple landscape features of the domain – upon the blank walls – upon the vacant eye-like windows – upon a few rank sedges – and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees”. In the preceding quote, the words reflect upon a deeper meaning of the place. I believe that it symbolizes the emptiness of the place, and how is it void.


Going along with being detailed, Poe’s diction plays a huge role in his writings. Poe is one of the many writers that use numerous amounts of adjectives to reel in readers. Besides adjectives and diction, pathos was used. This whole story consists of emotional. The emotions stream from worry to fear to confusion. The fear in this short story mainly takes place toward the end, where the sister was standing behind the door and ran in and killed her brother.



Edgar Allan Poe is a writer like no other. Even thought many people wrote “gothically” so to speak, Poe was different for many reasons. One, he was seemingly purely crazy. Everything, in almost all of his stories, end bad or with death. Another reason why Poe is like none other is because of his diction, not many author can pull of a page of adjectives and make it sound great.

3DGAR AlLAN P03! PiT & THE PENDULUM !

Rosie Charles
Edgar Allan Poe
The Pit & the Pendulum
AP ENG III



The Pit & the Pendulum is the perfect name for this story. For one, those two items are the main aspects of the story. And two, with that title, readers don’t know what exactly to expect. This element of suspense and twist is the writing fashion of esteemed Edgar Allan Poe. But yet, in this particular story, Poe does something that is quite unusual in most of his other writings. While unusual, he strays toward the rhetoric triangle in a different type of way, while still using tactics that he always does.


The first thing I, as a reader, noticed was that the whole story was dark. This is exactly what I was expecting. Mostly all of Poe’s story are dark and evil, if I may say so myself. This type of writing is called Gothic writing. This was the exactly opposite side of the writing of the Romanticism era. I choose to characterize the story as gothic because, for one, the entire environment is inside an enclosed pit. The pit is dark, and dark! Also I choose gothic because of the sequence of events that took place in the story. Nothing about this story is happy, well besides the ending.


The ending! Edgar Allan Poe’s ending are always infamous. All his ending are sad, or evil. Mostly ending in death, or despair, or worse! This is where the appeal to pathos comes into play. In the story, the character/narrator lives. But before we find this out, he has hope. Hope is a quality in Poe’s writing that is basically non-existing. If the characters have hope, the narrator doesn’t, or vise versa. But since the narrator was the main character, readers are quite lost, as was I. Another appeal to pathos/emotion is this one particular quote: “And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death,”. I classify this under emotion because emotion has to do with mentality. And in this quote it seems as thought his mentality was shot! I believe he went a little crazy before his burst of hope came skipping along.


All of Poe’s stories have amazing imagery. And almost all of the very visual effects are of gruesome details in the work. In The Pit & the Pendulum, the breath-taking imagery took place with the pendulum. For example: “was formed of a crescent glittering steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge evidently as keen of that of a razor.”. In this quote, a reader can see exactly what is being spoken of and exactly how it looks. Another example of imagery is this: “it swept so closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath”. While also being figurative language, the reader can see how close the pendulum really is to cutting the narrator.


Edgar Allan Poe’s the Pit & the Pendulum is one of his very best, in my eyes. It has a twist, like his entire writings do, but yet not in the way familiar readers of Poe’s expects to be “twisted”.

Desiree's Baby ( its actually a 3 pg lit.. lol)

Rosie Charles
AP ENG III
Desiree’s Baby


This story, Desiree’s Baby, was written by Kate Chopin on Nov. 24th in 1892. In this work, Chopin refers to race, gender, and discrimination as a whole. She is also writing off her own experience. Like many other families, Chopin’s family help slaves in the 1850’s. In this story, there are many aspects or the rhetoric triangle along with other concepts of literature, like irony.


The very first thing I noticed after reading this short story was that it was emotional, which appeals to pathos. This story was emotional in each and every way. From the love that Desiree gave her baby to the hatred that Armand now had for his baby. For example, “The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.”. In this sentence, emotional is most definitely present. The emotion here is panic and distress. In the sentence, ““Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand”, she laughed hysterically.”, the emotional boundaries are upon both panic and a slight hint of nervousness. Also, one of the most important quotes of this short story is: “She was like a stone image: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there.”. This is the most significant because after all the ups and downs she went through. This shows she has no emotion left to spare.


I believe that Chopin’s diction in this short story is what made the story a great one. Her diction leads us exactly where she wanted it to, but yet didn’t give away the twist until the very end. In the sentence, “He absented himself from the home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse.” , take notice to the way the author uses the pronoun “her”. It shows exactly how Armand distanced himself from them and how he didn’t care anymore either. Also, when it says “her child”, the way he disowns the child is now exemplified. Another great example of the spectacular diction used in this here literature is the response to Desiree’s letter from her mother. It read: “My own Desiree: Come home to Val monde; back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child”. I believe that this was the strangest of all the quotes yet. The wording shows that the mother had no remorse, no sympathy, and did not care what was happening to her “dear child”. It also leaves the next step opened ended because by her saying bring your child in that sense, that does mean that he is going into slavery? Or even worse: the both of them?


The last main concept of this short story, besides slavery, is feminism. Yes, FEMINISM. The story is so against women in every particle of it’s sense. For one, when this story was written, and even now, women were more looked to as property and not human beings, like men. But what makes the whole work feminist is that the blame of someone being black went straight to Desiree, and not a speckle to Armand. As you know, in the end we find out that Armand’s mom could have been black also, and most likely she was: just lighter than most blacks. This is also the irony I brought up earlier in this paper. Women weren’t respected then and really aren’t now. So now that you know the message, what are you going to do to fix this problem?

Spontaneous Me !

Rosie Charles
AP ENG III
Spontaneous Me by Walt Whitman



Walt Whitman was known as the most famous American poet in the 19th century. Born May 31st of 1819, Whitman was also a man of many works. Not only was he an extraordinary writer/poet, he knew the trade of printing, was a teacher, and founder of the weekly newspaper Long-Islander. Walt Whitman is best known for his literature called Leaves of Grass. But the poem titled Spontaneous Me is what caught my eye. In this specific poem, I believe Whitman was at his best. It was deep in every which way. The most abrupt way is in the use of pathos that stems from the rhetoric triangle.


This poem reflects a man’s feelings. Whether sexual, sensual, or sensitive, Whitman has them expressed. One main point that stood out to me is the concept of imagery. With the help of Whitman’s expertise diction, the imagery literally comes to life. For example, “The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,”. In this quote, reader’s can visualize a mountain draped with shades of white.


“The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied;”. This quote is a prime example of the figurative language used in Whitman’s wondrous poem. Also in this quote is a hidden meaning. The bee represents a man, while the flower represents a woman. I believe that the rest of the quote represents the sexual relationship between man and woman, or better yet, between him and his wife. This quote also reflects upon the story of the birds and the bees, ironically.


To conclude, Whitman is a great writer who has no fear to say what is on his mind, but in a writer’s fashion. I believe the purpose of this poem is to show the feeling of a man, and how men want what they want. Whether it is sex wise, or child wise.

KAT3 CH0PiN TH3 STOrY 0F aN H0Ur

Rosie Charles
AP ENG III
The Story of an Hour



Kate Chopin was born in 1851, in St. Louis. She always loved writing but her first novel wasn’t published until she was nearly forty-years old. This novel was called At Fault (1890). The story, The Story of an Hour, was written on April 19th 1894 and was published in Vogue on December 6th of that same year. In this piece of literature, Chopin appeals mainly to the pathos part of the rhetoric triangle.


The first concept of pathos is the most common: imagery. In this short story there are several references to the art of imagery. "The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves." These above sentences portray imagery. By reading these sentences, the reading can better understand the character’s emotions. Also, the outside world is also captured within the emotions.


“As a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.”. This quote addresses the concept of a simile. Usually most similes have a similar thing and a contrasting thing. The crying child is compared to the crying adult. They are both crying/sobbing so hard that they are shaking themselves. That is the part that is similar. The contrast part is that the child cries it self to sleep and the fact that it is a child. This is an important figurative language because it make the scene more real and believable.


Lastly is the figurative language that exaggerates. This is called the hyperbole. In this piece of work, a hyperbole isn’t as common as most may think. The one that stood out to me, though, is “Her fancy was funning riot along those days ahead of her.”. This means that her imagination was thinking very quickly about the things she could now do in the later days to come. This is a hyperbole because no one’s fancy (imagination) runs any where. This is also personification because running is a human-like trait that thought cannot do.


I, as a reader, believe that the main purpose and/or message of this short story is to appreciate your freedom whether you are being held down or not. Because you will never know when that freedom may be taken away from you in any form.

Ms Turth "@iNT i @ W0M@N?"

Rosie Charles
AP English III
Aint I A Woman?!?



In the speech “Aint I a Woman”, there is a lot of controversy about who wrote certain versions and why it is written certain ways. In one version, the title is “Aint I a Woman by Frances Gage (or Sojourner Truth)” There are two different ones. One is written in standard/correct English, while the other is written in “black dialectic”. Diction played a very important role in both of these pieces of work.


In the version with “black dialectic”, the diction is what stand out to me the most. For example, there are words like: aint, chilren, dey, dat, eber, ober, da, and ‘cause. I believe that this specific diction is a major asset in this speech because it targets a certain audience. For one it would be more understood by people who actually speak this way. Also, it makes the speech more down to Earth than anything. When someone speaks the way you do, it comforts you/the audience. It also make the writer/speaker seem more sincere. With this diction, the writer isn’t speaking over anyone’s head.


In the version with the Standard English, it has its advantages also. With this type diction I believe the source of the audience changes. For instance, the audience is no longer the “black” community. It is now the upper class that speaks proper. To me this seems as if the version is now aimed towards white people. This is the problem though. In the passage, Truth says we and uses pronouns that relate to each other, so why would this be toward white people.


I believe that Sojourner Truth wrote this speech in black dialectic, but not because she wasn’t as smart as whites, but because she wanted to relate to her people and her audience. I believe Truth was smarter than people have perceived. I have a strong feeling that the Standard English one was re-written for the upper class, and not to show Truth’s intellect. Why would she need to show that when she recently critized it in her speech?

Frederick Douglas

In the passage “Learning to Read and Write”, Frederick Douglas was a very determined young man. As explained, he was a slave that was to be enslaved for the rest of his life. Douglas was also on a mission: a mission to become literate. In this article, Douglas pertains to his audience at all times in several different ways.


One way in which Douglas focused on his audience is by the diction he has used. In the piece, the words used to explain are not complicated in so many different aspects. For example,” When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return.” This sentence, even thought in modern English for that time, it is very understanding. It is also very simple.


Pathos is the appeal to emotion: according to the rhetoric triangle. Even though this piece of literature isn’t for the audience, it stills appeals to them emotionally. By Douglas being a slave that hits home right away. Many people, almost matter no culture, has ancestors who have been enslaved. Blacks, Native Americans, Germans, and even whites as indentured servants. By this being a fact, it draws the audience in because they have something to relate.


Douglas’s main purpose was to inform the audience, and that was achieved. In this work, audience was the main priority. Douglas made them his focus by his diction and by his simplicity.