The Imp of the Perverse

Romantic writing is characterized by deep emotion—positive or negative—and a corresponding prioritization of imagination over reason. Poe’s story uses sensory imagery and symbolism to give the reader a strong emotive impression of both the wellspring of creativity and the power of dark imagination. The chiming clock, the precipice and abyss, and the cloud of unnamable feeling are all examples of Romantic imagery used to explore The Interplay of Creation and Destruction within the human psyche. Visual imagery illuminates the anticipation of the act of creation: “[W]e glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work” (5). Aural images of a clock’s bell as “the knell of our welfare” and of the work itself as “trumpet-tongued” (5)—a phrase that harkens to biblical depictions of angels—underscore the positive depiction. In contrast, the self-destructive impulse aligns with darker but equally evocative images. The narrator imagines thoughts of leaping from the cliff materializing into “palpability, a shape” and then specifies that this shape concerns the likely sensory experience of the fall (6)—i.e., its “sweeping precipitancy,” which suggests not only the fall’s speed but also the sensation of wind “sweeping” past one. The story thus paradoxically gives shape to “annihilation,” using tactile imagery to create something out of nothing.