Showing results for "The Oval Portrait" in Classics

In The Oval Portrait, Edgar Allan Poe weaves a haunting tale of obsession, art, and tragedy. A wounded traveler takes refuge in an abandoned mansion, where she becomes mesmerized by a lifelike portrait of a beautiful woman. As she delves deeper into the painting’s mysterious origins, the disturbing and supernatural truth behind the portrait begins to unravel. Poe's gothic storytelling masterfully blurs the line between reality and the supernatural in this chilling short story.

"The Oval Portrait" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a chateau. It is one of his shortest stories, filling only two pages in its initial publication in 1842. The tale begins with an injured narrator (the story offers no further explanation of his or her impairment) seeking refuge in an abandoned mansion in the Apennines. The narrator spends his or her time admiring the paintings that decorate the strangely shaped room and perusing a volume, found upon a pillow, that describes them.

Flash fiction from the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. A wounded gentleman, with his valet, breaks into an abandoned chateau in the Appennine mountains. The walls of the bedroom in which they situate themselves are decorated entirely with paintings. The gentleman's eyes fall upon a portrait of a young girl. He reads in an accompanying book the story of the portrait's creation and the fate of the subject caused by the artist's obsession with representing the girl with lifelike perfection.

The book describes a tragic story involving a young maiden of 'the rarest beauty'. She loved and wedded an eccentric painter who cared more about his work than anything else in the world, including his wife. The painter eventually asked his wife to sit for him, and she obediently consented, sitting "meekly for many weeks" in his turret chamber. The painter worked so diligently at his task that he did not recognize his wife's fading health, as she, being a loving wife, continually 'smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly'.

A traveler takes refuge in a château where he finds he is surrounded by fine paintings. Unable to sleep he takes refuge in a book. He moves the candelabrum to shed better light upon the book, but when he does so he discovers in the corner of the room and amazingly lifelike painting of a young woman. It is so real, and he is first so startled that he must close his eyes to gather his wits. After contemplating this painting for nearly an hour he discovers a catalog that describes the painting.

A mysterious and life-like portrait of a beautiful young woman holds a terrifying and tragic secret.

To his shock, a man discovers the painting of a woman is much, much more than life-like.

nos cuenta la historia de un hombre herido y su sirviente, que se adentran a un castillo recientemente abandonado, en el que se encuentran varias pinturas, una en particular llama la atención del relator.

"Le chat noir", "Le masque de la mort rouge" et "Le portrait ovale" : trois nouvelles, qui tiennent l'auditeur en haleine et posent de façon magistrale l'univers noir de ce maître du suspens que fut Edgar Allan Poe. Avant de mourir, un meurtrier rédige sa confession : un chat noir l'a amené à l'échafaud ; une forme spectrale sème la terreur dans une salle de bal ; dans une veille demeure, un homme est emporté par la contemplation d'un portrait énigmatique.