How does diction affect the theme in a story?

Answer 1

Major Themes

1. Love - usually of a mourning man for his deceased beloved.

2. Pride - physical and intellectual.

3. Beauty - of a young woman either dying or dead.

4. Death - a source of Horror.

Influence of Poe

1. Influenced writers of split personality.

2. Influenced literary criticism.

3. Influenced writers dealing with the disintegration of personality.

Poe's Four Types of Short Stories

1. Arabesque - strange; use of the supernatural; symbolic fantasies of the human condition; (Example - "The Fall of the House of Usher").

2. Grotesque - heightening of one aspect of a character (Example - "The Man Who Was Used Up").

3. Ratiocinative - detective fiction (Example "The Purloined Letter").

4. Descriptive (Example - "The Landscape Garden").

Poe's Aesthetic Theory of Effect

1. "Unity of effect or impression" is of primary importance; the most effective story is one that can be read at a single sitting.

2. The short story writer should deliberately subordinate everything in the story - characters, incidents, style, and tone - to bringing out of a single, preconceived effect.

3. The prose tale may be made a vehicle for a great variety of these effects than even the short poem.

Poe's main concern focused upon matters of design, proportion and composition; his use of effect meant the impact which a short work would make upon a reader. In reviewing Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales, he pointed out the writer's obligation and reward: "If his very initial sentence tend not to be the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction."

Paradoxes in Poe

1. His life - basically insecure and highly emotional, but his writing is structured.

2. He reflects the paradoxical time - there was the apocalyptic sense of doom combined with the romantic innocence of childhood.

3. Poe was a romantic writer, but he emphasized rationality.

4. He presents realistic details in gothic settings.

5. There is a paradox in Poe's critical thinking - he believed in individual creativity but advocated classical norms - the ideal length of a poem, suggested Poe, is 100 lines.

Answer 2

Diction influences the tone and mood of a story, which in turn can convey the theme more effectively. By choosing specific words and language, the author can emphasize certain aspects of the theme, evoke a particular emotional response from the reader, and help reinforce the central message of the story.