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Elements Of Suspense In Masque Of The Red Death

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Elements of suspense are the literary version of horror movie music. They make reading a thrilling experience and are prevalent in many texts, including those analyzed in this essay. Terrible Things by Eve Bunting and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson are more mysterious and subtle in the way elements are communicated, while in Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe and Contents of a Dead Man’s Pocket by Jack Finney the suspense is very evident and there is an aspect of fear in both passages. Some of the most prominent of these suspense elements that are expressed include universal fears and foreshadowing, which create fear for what is to come. Dramatic irony and anticipation or dread cause the reader to sense that something bad will happen.

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