28 pages • 56 minutes read
Berenice
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Literary Devices
Allusion
Allusions to mythology and literature help establish Egæus as an intellectual character and contrast with the story’s dark, sordid subject matter. In the 19th century, most educational curricula prioritized canonical works by Greek and Roman authors, and many poets used references to these works to increase the prestige of their own art. To convey Berenice’s initial beauty when she is roaming the hills around the estate, the narrator calls her a “Sylph” and a “Naiad” referencing magical spirits of air and water. Comparing her to these mythical creatures also makes her transformation into a “diseased,” “corpselike” being more shocking and abrupt. Egæus uses another allusion as the source for a metaphor that explains his own declining mental health:
My reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembled only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel (334).
This allusion invokes the asphodel flower, which Greek mythology said grew in the underworld. Therefore, Egæus subtly implies that his morbid fascination with death will be the thing that finally destroys his capacity for reason.
Ambiguity
The final scene of the story uses ambiguity, wherein the reader is able to understand the horrible reality of the situation, but the narrator never explicitly states what occurred. Egæus notices many unusual details after he returns to conscious thought after his trance, but the narration never fully confirms what appears to have happened. For example, the narrator remembers “the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ear” and finds “the impress of human nails” (336) on his hand, but he never admits to having extracted his fiancée’s teeth as she struggled, obviously still alive. Similarly, his clothes are covered in mud and blood, and there is a spade leaning against the wall of the room, but it is left to the reader to infer that Egæus dug up the grave. Finally, the last line of the story uses ambiguous language when describing the contents of the box, referring to the objects within by their color and their rattling sound without using the word teeth. While the reader can clearly deduce what happened based on this evidence, the story never presents the violent moment when the teeth were removed. Instead, Poe uses ambiguity to increase the feeling of dread and suspense.
Atmosphere
The story creates an atmosphere of dread through images and languages that emphasize the fearful qualities of the setting and the characters. At the beginning of the work, Egæus’s “gloomy, grey, hereditary hall” (333) establishes the story’s dark, despairing mood. The atmosphere becomes even more somber when Berenice falls ill. When she appears before Egæus in the library, he uses sensory language that denotes fear, saying “an icy chill ran through my frame” (334). After Berenice seems to die, the darkness and the deathly objects in her room create a somber and frightening atmosphere: “The room was large, and very dark, and at every step within its gloomy precincts I encountered the paraphernalia of the grave” (335). The repetition of dark, large, and cold spaces suggests that the house and the characters are immersed in a deathlike environment, which culminates in Berenice’s burial while she is alive. The atmosphere established through these sensory details creates a feeling of dread and suspense that intensifies throughout the story.
Rhetorical Question
The narration frequently uses rhetorical questions to underscore crucial moments in the plot and to reveal the narrator’s lack of comprehension. When describing the onset of Berenice’s disease, Egæus observes, ”The destroyer came and went, and the victim—where was she?” (333). This question cannot be answered because Berenice is still present, but asking where she went conveys how drastically she is changed. Similarly, the ending of the story uses frequent rhetorical questions to express Egæus’s confused and disjointed mental state. When he sees Berenice’s finger move in her coffin, he asks, “Is it possible?” (335). When he tries to remember his disinterment of the body, he thinks, “I had done a deed—what was it?” (335). The repetition of these rhetorical questions creates suspense, as the answer is not immediately clear to him or to the reader.
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By Edgar Allan Poe
