Stylistic devices

In order to portray the characters and to render the general gloomy mood of the novel vividly and convincingly the author uses various expressive means and stylistic devices. Lexical stylistic devices are of great importance here, as they are especially vivid and meaningful. Metaphors are commonly found in the text and present striking images:

• "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!"
• "And soon drowned in wine all memory of the dead."
• "But at length reflection came to my aid."
• "Many projects entered my mind." etc.

Personifications in the texts are of great interest and they create the mysterious and symbolic layer of the novel. The narrator animate the object, which take control of his soul:

• "the spirit of PERVERSENESS"
• "My original soul ... seemed to take a flight from my body.."
• "Evil thoughts became my sole intimates."

Similes are found within the text, the author uses them heavily to emphasize the likeness between things of symbolic meaning. For example, to draw special attention to the mysterious and doomed nature of the cat the author uses such simile: 

• "All black cats as witches in disguise". 

The decay of the narrator's soul is heighten by the following simile:

•  "The spirit of PERVERSENESS as if my final and irrevocable overthrow".

Other similes in the novel:

• "..as if graven it has relief.."
• "...packed in a box, as if merchandize."
• "a voice.. like a sobbing of a child."

The descriptive epithets are employed by the author to project vivid imagery of the novel:

• "a crafty animal"; "a hideous beast" (about the cat);
• "immortal soul"
• "deadly sin"
• "damnable atrocity"
• "demonical interference" etc.

Epithets contribute to the general gloomy, tense and mysterious atmosphere of the novel. 

Paradoxically enough, but there are numerous cases of irony, found in the text. For instance, the narrator claims his story to be "an ordinary one", though he narrates it from his prison cell and his act is a murder:

• "My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, and without comment, a series of mere household events".

What's more, the narrator claims himself to be not a madman, which is also a case of irony.

Cases of oxymoron can be singled out: 

• "the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God"
• "most wild, yet most homely"

A litotes is introduced by the author:

• "not uncongenial"

Syntactical stylistic devices are also of great importance.  Repetitions are the brightest in the text, they contribute to the atmosphere of gloom and horror in the novel. Anaphoric repetitions are very vivid:

• "Some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical..."
• "These walls are you going, gentleman? - these walls are solidly put together.."
• "I am almost ashamed to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own.."

Repetitions are very common in the novel, much examples can be introduced:

• "But my disease grew upon me - for what disease is.." 
• "...more moody, more irritable, more regardless.."
• "This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil"

Parallel constructions are also found in the novel:

• "Hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; hung it because I knew that..."

Polysyndetons and asyndetons contribute more to growing feeling of terror in the novel. Such cases of polysyndeton can be found: 

• "...of an object...of the monster..of a hideous - of a ghastly thing - of the Gallows...of Crime - of Agony and of Death!"

Asyndetons:

• "I blush, I burn, I shudder.."
• "I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat."

Inversion:

• "Yet, mad I am not".

Cases of climax are very vivid, they contribute to the understanding of the decaying soul of the protagonist, whose acts are becoming more and more dreadful while his soul grows to be covered with dark impulses:

• "A cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud and continouos scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a whaling shriek..."and so on.
• "a sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outburst of a fury"
• "these events have terrifies - have tortured - have destroyed me"

Phonetic means are of special attention, as they make the language of the novel  sound in the reader's mind so distinctly and true-to-life. Alliteration reveals itself in the repetition of the sound "s":

• "sooner", "sunk", "silence", "answered", "voice"

Assonance is evident in the repetition of the sound "u" and "o":

• "u": "sooner", "tomb";
• "o": "blows", "voice"

Graphic means seem to be of great importance for the author, as he implies very often capitalization of nouns:

• "of the Gallows...of Crime - of Agony and of Death!"
• "the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God"
• "PERVERSENESS"
• "Night-Mare"
• "Rest"
• "mere Humanity"

Summing up the analysis of the given extract one should say that Edgar Allan Poe brilliantly uses numerous devices such as parallelism, repetition, metaphor, personification, irony and so on. All of the elements contribute to the creating of the atmosphere of the novel: gloomy, tense, mysterious, heightened. What's more, stylistic devices reveal the inner struggle of the narrator of the story.