Poe v. King: Three critical approaches toward a reevaluation of King's short fiction

This study provides an unbiased comparison of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King by examining two selected short stories from each author through three lenses of literary criticism. The selected stories are Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" and "Ms. Found in a Bottle" and King's "Dolan's Cadillac" and "The Raft." A formal, systematic approach examines the stories through Genre Studies, Psychoanalytical Criticism, and Genetic Criticism and analyzes the results.; The conclusions of this study assert that some of King's work can indeed flourish under rigorous literary criticism but that not all his short stories transcend the realm of entertainment. Although inconsistent in its literary quality, King's work offers rich and significant readings when given the opportunity to be examined through the lenses of accepted schools of criticism.