While Poe is best remembered for his macabre tales -- "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Black Cat," or "The Masque of the Red Death," in his time he was noted for his tales of the sea, of explorers and adventurers who risked -- and sometimes lost -- their lives on hazardous voyages that brought them to fantastical countries. Such tales were a stock-in-trade of his day, with those of Sinbad the Sailor the best-known -- but one could easily think of modern science-fiction serials, such as Star Trek, as the inheritors of this tradition.
Poe's unique gift was to blend such fanciful adventures with elements of extraordinary realism, giving a fresh sense of the limited power of humans in the face of the sublime forces of the oceans. The effect was very carefully obtained. Poe had devoured any number of nautical narratives, and always had some navigational manuals, along with the Encyclopedia Brittanica, close at hand. He had not, it is true, the benefit of very much experience at sea -- but he was master and commander of the words, the perfect mixture of nautical terminology and first-person terror, that could make his readers shiver in their imaginary sea-boots.
"A Descent into the Maelstrom" was an early work, and opens innocently enough as a sort of travelogue: the reader is taken to the edge of a cliff, where a wizened old local is going to tell his tale of the sea below. And yet, as it develops, it turns into a horror story, one in which -- as with so many haunted houses -- the experience has driven its teller into old age overnight with fear, escape though he did. It's a perfect little diversion, ending with an almost too-practical solution, rather like a problem in mechanics.
"MS. Found in a Bottle" take Poe's dark romance with the sea to a far deeper and more disturbing level. Published in 1833, it earned him a fifty-dollar prize -- then a considerable sum -- from the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. In it, Poe makes use of a device he would come to rely on frequently: a first-person narrator who is an absolute realist, one to whom "the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity." For what better person to tell us of wonders beyond our wildest imaginings? The story draws from other myths and tales as well, such as that of the "Flying Dutchman" (which goes back way before Disney) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. And yet, in a way that's difficult to entirely pin down, it goes far beyond these tales by evoking the uncanny scene of a ship filled with ancient navigators, all indifferent to their guest, plummeting to their doom with peculiar looks of joy upon their faces.
"MS. Found in a Bottle" take Poe's dark romance with the sea to a far deeper and more disturbing level. Published in 1833, it earned him a fifty-dollar prize -- then a considerable sum -- from the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. In it, Poe makes use of a device he would come to rely on frequently: a first-person narrator who is an absolute realist, one to whom "the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity." For what better person to tell us of wonders beyond our wildest imaginings? The story draws from other myths and tales as well, such as that of the "Flying Dutchman" (which goes back way before Disney) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. And yet, in a way that's difficult to entirely pin down, it goes far beyond these tales by evoking the uncanny scene of a ship filled with ancient navigators, all indifferent to their guest, plummeting to their doom with peculiar looks of joy upon their faces.
This week’s reading once again took me a while to get the meaning of the story. I watched a YouTube video of the script, and it made it a little easier to hear the difference of voices between the narrator and the man that had been in the maelstrom before. What I found that makes this story fascinating is how the author uses the power of storytelling to convey not only the physical danger of the Maelstrom but also the psychological and emotional impact of it. The narrator’s sense of helplessness and dread as well as the will to survive are both described in such detail that I felt like I could almost feel myself being pulled into the whirlpool right alongside of him. I enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more stories in this class by these authors that do a wonderful job storytelling in a sense that makes you feel like you are right there with them in the story.
ReplyDelete- Rebecca Fyrer
A descent into the Maelstrom was an interesting read, as the narrator is being told of a tragic story by an older man. The older man had once been swept into the maelstrom along with his two brothers whilst returning from a fishing trip. Being the only survivor, the old man tells this story almost as a warning not to get too curious, as he had experienced the worst possible scenario with the maelstrom. As for Manuscript in a Bottle, it had a similar narrative to Maelstrom. An unknown narrator who boards a ship in Batavia faces a storm and is one of only two survivors. To make matters worse, this ship then floats its way down into the south pole and collides with a larger galleon. The narrator is aware that he is in an unusual circumstance that could result in his peril, hence why he would attempt to write a manuscript to be sent out to sea. These two tales as written in a way that almost make it sad to read them. I could only imagine how scary these experiences were for both narrators.
ReplyDelete- Garet Reilly
In Descent into the Maelstrom, we hear a story from a man that escaped death and lost his two brothers in the process of a natural phenomenon. Despite being the only survivor to this natural disaster, no one believed the man when he told his story, and he was left to be the only one to live knowing the truth. As for the short story, MS Found in a Bottle, it tells a detailed experience from an unknown narrator as he escapes death, writes his manuscript, and then, thrown into death once more. In both of these stories, Poe went through great research to turn real places and phenomenons into fictional stories with such great detail, you can clearly picture the story unfold in your mind as if you were there.
ReplyDelete- Hannah Parker
A Descent into the Maelström opens with a man who appears to be old telling the narrator about a terrifying experience he had among the nearby whirlpools of Norway. He claims to be younger than he appears to be because of his white hair. However, his experience and close encounter with death caused his black hair to turn white over the course of one day. By holding onto a water cask, the man was able to stop himself from falling into the maelstrom and escape its force. The white-haired man was saved by some fishermen as its force gradually diminished. The man tells the narrator that when he was pulled onto the fishing boat that was when his hair went from jet black to white. I interpreted this as the stress life puts us through, some being our own fault and some being natural stress tends to make us age faster.
ReplyDeleteMS Found in a Bottle describes the narrator’s experiences at sea, following a storm and shipwreck. The narrator is alone, and cut off from his family, boards a ship but the ship is hit by a storm during its voyage. The ship capsizes, and only the narrator and one other passenger manage to avoid drowning. Poe’s sea stories have recurrent themes, and both of these stories contain some shared concepts. Both have the force of a whirlpool against which a man is helpless to defend himself, and the extreme ends of the earth. - Katherine Arthurs
While most people tend to focus on Poe's greatest stories and successes, the author is trying to convey the reader to understand that he created more than just what you see on the surface. Edgar created pieces that entailed real emotion and readers feel the fear their antagonists face... such as in the story MS Found in a Bottle, where a man gets lost at sea due to natural disasters and writes about his hardships on a manuscript. Another great emotional read is a Descent into the Maelstrom, which describes the tail of a man who survives another disaster, but loses his brothers in the process. Personally, because this is Poe's earlier work, I think that Poe had deep connections to these stories and they represent his own feelings/emotions through his hardships. As this author said, Poe will always be looking over your shoulder and reading with you, the situation is far from ideal, and there is personal pain written within the novels.
ReplyDelete-Ava Perry
MS found in a bottle tells a story about a man who is alone and cut off from his family during a ship voyage. The ship hits a storm, where only the narrator and one other passenger manage to survive. The man finds a way to document his experience on a manuscript about getting lost at sea while all about him is chaos. Descent into the Maelstrom was similar in the sense, where a man survived another disaster, a shipwreck and a whirlpool. Poe shows an interest and follows a theme writing about sea stories, which I believe to be a symbolization of his own experience at sea and a representation of his personal thoughts and fears. Poe's work reflects his own tragedies, as he often conveys loneliness in most of his stories such as these reads.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first tried reading A Descent into the Maelstrom I found myself very confused and like I needed to hear it aloud. I thought it would help my understanding to listen to the story and follow along, the narrator that I listened to did a great job of painting different images in my head about what was going on. The description of the water and winds and everything else around set a very dark and eerie image in my mind. I felt as though this story was beautifully chaotic. Although it's describing an awful storm and shipwreck the narrator could also step back and see the beauty of the wild storm and how powerful it was.
ReplyDeleteThe Maelstrom reminds me of black holes in space. The maelstrom being this force of nature that causes objects to get sucked into and feels dangerous and almost unexplainable similar to a black hole. It's interesting how the old man, the survivor is telling his story about encountering a force of nature, almost like legend. Where someone tells a story about their experience with the supernatural and being able to tell the story in a dramatic, exciting, way that engages the reader. In the MS Found in a Bottle, there was a man who went out to sea on a ship and was thrown overboard, being the only survivor on the ship. MS Found in the bottle was similar to the Maelstrom story, where the characters are thrown into the sea and struggling to survive. Both stories have a feeling of fear and try to live to tell the tale. -Jessyca Iswanto
ReplyDeleteWhat I found interesting between these two stories is the similarity of destruction. A Descent into the Maelstrom involved a man getting pulled into a whirlpool, and Manuscript in a Bottle ended with the narrator dying in a similar whirlpool. However, the man in the Maelstrom was able to escape by simple observation because he knew he did not want to die, the crew members who died in the whirlpool seemed to have a hopefulness of dying. In both of these stories, Poe uses eerie imagery to capture the settings which gives the reader the foresight to know that they may not have a happy ending.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main things I noticed in both stories by Edgar Allan Poe was the importance of human instinct. For example in A Descent into the Maelstrom the man and his brother were already inside of the whirlpool about to be engulfed. However, the man had decided to follow his instinct and jump off the boat in his last efforts to save himself and was successful in doing so. In Message Found in A Bottle the main character had a similar experience where he had an eerie feeling that something horrible was to occur but was turned away by the captain because there was no indication of danger. As a result the ship was submerged with water and most of the travelers in the ship perished. I think if the captain had listened to the man’s worries they would have been saved. In the same way in the descent into the maelstrom the man's brother had died because he did not follow the man's instinct to jump off the boat before it was immersed into the whirlpool. I think Edgar Allan Poe wanted to display how important human instinct is in surviving chaotic situations.
ReplyDelete- Ashley Hernandez
In the reading, "Descent into the Maelstrom", the narrator is on a boat with a man who tells him his close death experience. The man was at sea one day with his brothers and he had an instinct a storm may be brewing because of how the seas were changing fast and how the boat was sailing differently. The storm takes his brothers out to sea and they perish while the man is lucky enough to survive. A fisherman notices the man lost at sea and helps him onto his boat. When he tells the fisherman what happened he doesn't believe him. As the man is telling the narrator about his horrifying experience with the maelstrom in great detail, he already knows that the narrator most likely won't believe him either. The man lives on to tell his story to inform others about the maelstrom even though they may not believe his story is true or that it could happen to them.
ReplyDeleteIn "Manuscript Found in a Bottle", the narrator had a feeling something did not feel right. He decided to tell the captain and he completely ignored the narrators fears just like the rest of the crew had always ignored him. Eventually, tragedy struck where their ship started to plunge straight down into the water and was sinking. The narrator knew he would not survive. In addition to him knowing he would not survive, he made an attempt to warn others to let the world know by writing a manuscript. After writing his experience, he sent it off at sea in a bottle with hopes of someone encountering one day.
A comparison between the two stories could be that both men in the stories felt as if there was danger and they turned out to be right. The fisherman did not believe the mans story just like the captain in the other story did not believe the narrators accusations of their ship and crew being in danger. Both men wanted to inform other people about their tragic experiences although nobody would listen to them in the first place.
-Elena Ruggieri
After I first read both of the stories, I was quite confused. So I needed to read it again and hear it in a different way such as listening to someone else read it aloud. After that I did end up getting a good idea of the purposes. With the reading "Manuscript Found in a bottle" it talks about a tale of a man who is separated from his family and alone aboard a ship. Only the narrator and one other passenger survive the storm that the ship experiences. While everything around him is in a state of confusion, the man manages to write about his experience in a manuscript about becoming lost at sea. While the story " Descent into the Maelstrom" was very comparable because in the story is about a man who survived a shipwreck and a whirlpool. It starts off with two brothers who sailed their fishing boats into raging waters, but with only one survivor. I feel like there is a common theme from Poe about writing about the sea, which can show his thoughts and feelings.
ReplyDelete-Ciara Banks
DeleteWhen reading The Descent into a Maelstrom I found it very interesting how the man with white hair brought the narrator up to the top of a cliff to tell the story it’s almost like he wanted him to see what the maelstrom while he was telling the story so he would believe him more. When they reach the top we find out that the man is not old but the events he talks about make his hair turn gray, when he tells the story he goes into detail to the narrator and then talks about how no one else believes him. The man in the story was the only one who had lived and told his story about the maelstrom encounter, I can see the difficulty it must be to have no one believe what you went through losing both brothers to the maelstrom. Overall I enjoyed this story more than the Manuscript Found in a Bottle because of the way it is told and appeals more to be personally.
ReplyDeleteNoah Morin
DeleteThe story is quite interesting and describes a man and mainly a storm, which is the maelstrom that is a combination of stream and ocean with a calm and violent nature. The maelstrom is a body of water that contains abyss, whales, and stones all of which can be good or bad depending on the day. The relationship between the ocean/stream is a very delicate one it can be beneficial and also disastrous in nature but it careful observation it gives good tides. - ololade ojekunle
ReplyDeleteIn the story “Descent into the Maelstrom”, the man narrating the story is sharing a close death experience. It talks about this storm at sea that led to the disappearance of his siblings and him in confusion lost at sea. He luckily is saved by a fisherman. The fisherman eventually starts sharing a crazy story about the Maelstrom. While the narrator is not believing it, and possibly maybe even seeing it as odd. This story is interesting to me because the man shares this story since it can happen to others, yet it is so unbelievable. - Emily Torrez
ReplyDeleteIn the story “Descent into the Maelstrom”, the man narrating the story is sharing a close death experience. It talks about this storm at sea that led to the disappearance of his siblings and him in confusion lost at sea. He luckily is saved by a fisherman. The fisherman eventually starts sharing a crazy story about the Maelstrom. While the narrator is not believing it, and possibly maybe even seeing it as odd. This story is interesting to me because the man shares this story since it can happen to others, yet it is so unbelievable.
DeleteIn the story “ Manuscript Found in a Bottle” it talks about something similar to “Descent into the Maelstrom”. It correlates to being lost at sea, but in this reading it is a man aboard alone. He lost his family, only one other person and the man telling the story (narrator). Everything is odd and the boat is sinking so he starts to write down about what happened/ is happening about being lost at sea. He sends off the bottle trying to be rescued. He had hope of an encounter one day. I enjoyed this story more than the other one, but found the other one easier to understand.
- Emily Torrez
In the story, "Descent into the Maelstrom", I feel like one aspect that really stood out to me is the fisherman's ability to navigate the whirlpool by making strategic choices during the chaos. It makes you wonder, how important is it to stay calm during these dangerous situation.
ReplyDeleteIn the second story its similar to the first one, because both narrators are facing life-threatening situations. In the second story, the narrator merely survived a series of events. In the first story, the narrator used his quick instinct to survival the whirlpool. This comes to show that the humans are powerful-less in the face of unknown.
_sky toh
I found both stories by Poe to be fascinating and intriguing, thanks to his mastery of creating suspense and mystery. In particular, "MS. Found in a Bottle" reminded me a lot of when I had to study Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" during high school. Both stories take place at sea, and the ships are caught in a mysterious storm, leading to the discovery of a mysterious or "ghost" ship that fills the crew with fear. In both cases, the stories end with the crew meeting unfortunate fates. One similarity I found between "A Descent into the Maelstrom" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is the presence of a sole survivor telling the story.
ReplyDeleteThese stories vividly showcase how the sea used to be mysterious and unknown to many people in the past. However, even with all the technologies and tools we have nowadays, it's still frightening to think that there could be so much more in the sea that we have no idea even exists.
In the end, the ocean's vastness and depth make it a source of mystery and intrigue, just as it was for writers in the past.
While first reading, the both stories I was having a quite particularly hard time understanding them. Which after I realized not only myself but a few others ran into that problem as well. Just so many pieces of the story, I agree with other that this was something I had to listen to someone reading it out loud to be able to understand and really picture what the narrator is telling the reader. The overall topic for "Descent into the Maelstrom" is the man and the storm, and how the fisherman was able us his critical thinking during a crazy storm. The other story, "Manuscript Found in a Bottle" was a very crazy piece of writing and how the man was about to escape a strong and weary fate of death.
ReplyDelete"Descent into the Maelstrom" and "Manuscript Found in a Bottle" are both captivating short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. In "Descent into the Maelstrom," Poe masterfully weaves a tale of survival and despair as a sailor recounts his harrowing experience in a massive whirlpool. The story explores themes of human resilience and the relentless power of nature. On the other hand, "Manuscript Found in a Bottle" is a mysterious narrative where an unnamed protagonist becomes the sole survivor of a doomed shipwreck, discovering a bizarre and enigmatic world beyond the storm. Poe's skillful use of suspense and atmosphere in both stories showcases his talent for creating eerie and unsettling tales that continue to captivate readers today.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Descent into the Maelström," Edgar Allan Poe uses the narrator's dangerous circumstances to examine how the human spirit may persevere and overcome hardship. The story serves as a reminder that even in the face of extreme tragedy, individuals may find the fortitude and will to live. The narrator's shipwreck and plunge into the enormous vortex, is the story's primary event. The narrator's survival of this struggle against all odds serves as a powerful symbol for human perseverance.
ReplyDelete"The Descent into the Maelstrom" by Edgar Allan Poe describes a story of a seemingly old man being caught in a Maelstrom (or whirlpool) alongside his two brothers. His brothers both do not make it, but the old man eventually becomes the only survivor on his ship. "MS. Found in a Bottle," also by Poe, describes the story of a man who while on a voyage, also gets caught in a whirlpool alongside his crew on the ship. However, the whirlpool in this story takes the protagonist to many different realms and adventures. In the end, the protagonist is the only survivor left on the ship he was on. Both "The Descent into the Maelstrom" and "MS. Found in a Bottle" share many similarities with each other. Both stories demonstrate the power one can show while fighting through adversity.
ReplyDelete^^^Sofia Rosa
DeleteIn "Descent into the Maelstrom," the narrator recounts an extraordinary survival experience in a massive whirlpool off the coast of Norway. The story explores the limits of human resilience and the overpowering forces of nature. It delves into the psychological and emotional toll of facing an imminent, catastrophic event. Poe employs vivid and detailed descriptions to create a sense of dread, emphasizing the insignificance of humanity in the face of the vast and indifferent natural world. The tale is a powerful allegory, highlighting the fragility of human existence and the inevitability of mortality.
ReplyDelete"Manuscript Found in a Bottle" follows an unnamed narrator who finds himself on a mysterious and eerie ship that sails uncontrollably toward the South Pole. The story unfolds as a tale of cosmic horror, with the protagonist encountering strange landscapes and otherworldly phenomena. The narrative creates a sense of isolation, hopelessness, and the unknown. The story's conclusion is particularly haunting, as the ship is drawn into a massive vortex, leaving the fate of the narrator unresolved. Like many of Poe's works, "Manuscript Found in a Bottle" taps into the fear of the unknown and the existential terror associated with confronting the incomprehensible aspects of the universe.
Both stories share Poe's recurring themes of death, the uncanny, and the sublime.