The Bells Fear Quotes

This is a great image, and a good example of Poe's awesomeness (yeah, we're pretty big fans). Instead of just clanging loudly, the brass alarm bells scream out their fear ("affright"). This use of personification gives a feeling of intensity and danger to this moment. It's as if the fire was so hot and scary that it even brought the bells to life. It's a big change from the happy sleigh rides and mellow weddings we've been hearing about in the first few sections. All of a sudden the monster of fear is on the loose.

First of all, check out the excellent alliteration in this line. There's a tight, nervous sound in all those repeating "t"s. We think it helps to ratchet up the tension, and make us feel the fear that's spreading through the poem. This is Poe's home base, for sure. He made his reputation on tales of terror, and on descriptions of moments just like this one, when fear hangs in the air.

Notice the way that the speaker cycles through different words for the fear that the bells feel (and the fear their sound causes). He calls it "affright," "terror," and now "horror." In this case, he's talking about a kind of liquid horror pouring out of the bells. It helps to remember that fire was a really scary and common thing in the nineteenth century, when this poem was written. If you heard a fire alarm bell in the night, you better believe you'd be scared.

Sometimes a little word makes all the difference. In this case, it's the word "we." This is the only time the speaker uses this word in the whole poem. It's the only moment where he includes us, his readers, in the story he's telling. The effect is subtle, but chilling. All of a sudden we can imagine ourselves lying in bed, shivering with fear. Maybe it makes you think of those moments when you sat up and listened for things going bump in the night.

We really like this image as a way of describing the effects of fear. We can feel the weight of that stone rolling over our hearts, creating a crushing heaviness in our chests. The creepiest thing about this is that the ghouls who are spreading this fear seem to enjoy it. What's scary and awful for us is just a good time for the ghouls. It's a classic Poe moment. The sickness of fear mixes with the thrill of horror – after all, there must be a reason we keep reading poems and stories about scary things.