The Premature Burial

Poe often left his stories open to interpretation, creating a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty. In this story, the conclusion is unambiguous, but the themes are left open and unresolved. For example, the question of whether the narrator’s fear of premature burial is entirely justified remains unsettled. The narrator appears to have rational, grounded reasons for his fear, as it is backed by supposedly reputable journals. However, this evidence is taken to the extreme, creating extreme disharmony in his life.

The line between the rational and the imaginary is not always clear. The clarity of the line between life and death also remains ambiguous in the story, and it was more difficult to delineate in Poe’s historical period than in contemporary times. This ambiguous, unclear line causes the terrifying cases of premature burial that the narrator reads about.

Bathos is a literary device that involves a sudden shift in tone from serious or elevated to trivial or absurd. It is often used to create a humorous or ironic effect, but it can also be used to criticize or mock something by making it seem less important than it is. The use of bathos in “The Premature Burial” makes it unclear whether Poe is writing based on his own fear of death and premature burial or mocking the historical moral panic surrounding this phenomenon.