Poe's short stories: Dr Jay Mehta's task

The mysterious, secretive and dark settings characterize the stories of the writer who is considered to be the inventor of detective fiction, i.e Edgar Allan Poe. Mostly known for his short stories and poetry, Poe's own life was quite mysterious and controversial itself. However, that's not what this post is all about. This post explores how, writers of those times, especially writers of detective fiction like Poe, could create some of the spine-chilling narratives with nothing but words. Language though often considered a distinct field of study from literature, has a symbiotic relationship with the same. Which is obvious because literature is composed with the use of anything but language! 😅 Anyways, let me move on to the task at hand which is to answer the questions asked here.

1) Alliteration is indeed one of those devices which help the writer in creating a kind of dark setting required for this genre. However, I would rather like to point out the very first line of the story માનસંઘ, i.e 'એક તો એ અંધારી રાત હતી'. The idea of that અંધારી રાત (dark night) sets the mood of the story. The very mention of a dark night arouses a sense of eeriness in the mind of the reader. For a reader who loves to read detective fiction or ghost stories and such supernatural narratives, the dark night itself becomes a cue that something strange or mysterious 😮 is about to happen.

2) In માનસંઘ, the use of adjectives such as નીરસ and નિર્જન for the atmosphere create a kind of scary setting for the story. The mention of the narrator stepping into a puddle (ખાબોચિયું ) on a night where there's pin drop silence creates some sensory images for the reader. Other than that, the discussions between the narrator and the three other characters including માનસંઘ, about the mysterious downfall of anyone who works on Narayan's farm also sets the reader for the pre-established design of the writer.

3) At various instances in માનસંઘ, the natural elements such as the wind, the night, the rain, etc are personified in order to create the dark setting in which the strange events take place. Take for instance the narrative where માનસંઘ narrates his encounter with the ghostly creature on the cliff near Naran's farm. He says,"રાત ના અંધારા ઉતર્યા હતા", which literally translates into the 'darkness of the night was stepping down' 😂. Sounds weird but that's what it means if we take that literally. The fundamental idea of the writer though, was to describe the intense darkness surrounding the area at that time of the night. In which Jayant Khatri succeeds.

4) When I started reading માનસંઘ , it was around 12:00 in the night so of course by the time I reached the narration of the scary experiences, I was scared too. This is something which every reader could relate to. When you're lost in a story and then suddenly a scary narrative comes up and then again if you're alone in a room, chances are you'll get scared to death. This happens with scary movies also. Unfortunately I wasn't able to listen to the second story, so don't know how that would've felt.

Secondly, when I finished reading માનસંઘ , there was this sense of grief mixed with uncertainty. Simultaneously, there was also a sense of despair as it ended with 'એ સવાર ઉઘડવાને બહુ બહુ વાર હતી'.

Well,  in my opinion, this is something a successful macabre narration feels like. It leaves you with questions and ambiguity. I'll end this post, again with a quote from Poe: