Abstract
by Riah Wiratningsih
Thesis : undergraduate program of Sebelas Maret University Surakarta
Edgar Allan Poe was a famous American poet, short story writer, journalist, and literary critic who lived in 1809-1849. As the saddest and the strangest figure in American literary history, he had unique style in expressing his works. Death played a major part in many of his writings. He blended the sorrow, despair, anger and suffer from loss, as in his short stories The Fall of The House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat. The death in the three short stories brings the reader to a mystery. This is interesting to be analyzed. In the three short stories there are some questions, full of secrets, and have surprise endings. Mystery gives reader uncertainty about the conclusion of the story. In some stories the reader may guess the conclusion before they even finish reading them, but when author adds mystery into their masterpieces, the stories become far more interesting and keeps the reader wondering whether the conclusion of the story would end like they thought and therefore keeps the reader wanting to read more.
This research is descriptive; it takes form of statements, quotations, and explanations that found in the short stories. The method of collecting data is through library research. It is only a study to book references, which are provided in library. After reading and understanding the short stories, essays, comments and other writing that support the subject matter of the research, the researcher can analyze the three short stories. The purpose of the research is to reveal the mystery in Poe’s short stories The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Black Cat. In order to achieve the purpose, the researcher employs structural approach as the guide step.