The Oval Portrait Class 11 English Summary

   UNIT - 1.2  

THE OVAL PORTRAIT

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, literary critic and editor. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of the American literature as a whole. He is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. 

He is famous for his dark, mysterious poems and stories, including The Raven, The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Heart. His tale The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. His The Raven (1845) is among the best-known poems in the national literature. 

'The Oval Portrait' was first published as a longer version titled 'Life in Death' in Graham's Magazine in 1842. The shorter version, renamed 'The Oval Portrait' was published in the April 26, 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal. This is the story of an artist who wants to make a painting of his young wife, but becomes so obsessed with it that he doesn't realize his wife is dying meanwhile. This is a short horror story about the relationship between art and life, through the narrator's encounter with the oval portrait of a young woman in a chateau in the Appenines.

 🔆 The Oval Portrait Summary 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) wrote the story 'The oval portrait. He was an American writer, poet, literary critic and editor. He is known as a central figure of Romanticism in the united state and of the American literature. This is the story of an artist who wants to make a painting of his young wife, but becomes so passionate with it that he doesn't realise that his wife is dying. The writer describes about the relationship between art and life, through the narrators encounter with the oval portrait of a young woman in a chateau in the Appenines.

In the first part of the story, the narrator is wounded and fevered. He has required shelter in an old house with his servant, Pedro. He holds up in one of the rooms. The narrator stays awake while his servant sleeps. He finds the strange paintings decorating the walls of the room, and reads a small book he had found on the pillow of the bed, which contains information about the paintings.

In the second section, narrator tells how a beautiful women marries a painter who is completely fascinated in his work. At midnight, his eye catches a portrait he hadn't previously noticed, in an oval-shaped frame, depicting a young girl. The narrator is fascinated by the portrait, which seems to be so life-like. He turns to the book and reads the entry detailing the history behind the oval portrait. The women depicted in it was the young bride of the painter, and a was a perfect wife in every respect. 

The artist paints a portrait of his wife, and become more and more serious with capturing her likeness picture, until he ends up the portrait of his wife. To complete the painting process, it takes many weeks. She become weak but the painter doesn't know about her condition. When he has just finished the portrait by painting, he finds that his wife was dead. The painter suddenly becomes hopeless.

Get Exercise