“The Premature Burial” Analysis

By Brighton Owens
Part A

In the story “The Premature Burial,” by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator is described as a man who
is constantly tormented by his own fears, so much so that he wastes his life fearing that people will think
him dead and bury him alive by accident. It is not until the very end that he is able to overcome this fear
and presumably live his life normally. The recurring theme in this work is that anyone can overcome
their fears if they are able to ignore them and clear their head.

Part B

In the story “The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allen Poe, the main theme is that anyone can
overcome their fears if they don’t allow themselves to be consumed by them. In my life, I have often
allowed myself to be consumed by my fear of flying. At one point we were flying across country for a
trip, and I started having a panic attack mid-flight, hyperventilating and feeling extremely terrified. It was
only once we landed that I realized that I really have no reason to be afraid of anything while flying. I
have never allowed that fear to consume me, and in the years since, I have never had such an extreme
reaction. If I had remained focused on what could've happened, I would’ve only been hurting myself.

Part C

1. He uses very vivid imagery to describe the experience, saying

“the unendurable oppression of thelungs

the suffocating fumes from the damp earth
the clinging of the death garments...
the blackness of an absolute night.”

He also utilizes dark tone, including words like oppression, unendurable, fumes, suffocating,
clinging, death, blackness, silence, overwhelms, unseen, conqueror, intolerable, etc.

2. Sometimes the heartbeat is still barely there, and the body may retain some heat, and the lungs
will contract and breathe randomly and abruptly.
3. He compares waking up to a beggar seeing the sunrise. He suggests that waking up is not as
pleasant for him as it would be for others, its joy is lost on him.
4. He describes the experiences of premature burial in very vivid and often horrifying language,
make the reader almost feel trapped themselves.
5. The narrator was only dreaming. “for I shuddered to reflect that, upon awaking, I might might
myself the tenant of a grave.”
6. It seems that someone is talking to him in his grave, and it only magnifies his fear.
7. He is constantly terrified, because he would have no power if his fear was to be realized. It’s a
kind of unrealistic fear, but it still consumes him.
8. He uses a very fast pace and a lot of fragmented sentences to raise the tension.
9. He is being buried alive since the people thought he was dead.
10. It increases the reading pace and forces the reader to absorb more information quicker. I felt
worried, and scared.
11. He has buried, and he things the voices above him are there to find him. At this point, I would be
relieved.
12. He experiences the same sensory feelings, the same smells and sounds.
13. The narrator overcomes his fear. I think this would be a typical reaction, as the most
strengthening thing a person can do is to face their fears.
14. He is telling the reader that our fears will consume us unless we can conquer them.