Question

which of the following inferences is best supported by the passage (paragraph 30)? of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. swooning, i staggered to the opposite wall. for one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. in the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. it fell bodily. the corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. i had walled the monster up within the tomb!

Answer 1

An inferred theme is the narrator's guilt and the supernatural revelation of his crime. Gothic elements and eerie settings characterize the writing of Edgar Allan Poe, hinting at themes of retribution and guilt-induced horror.

Step-by-step explanation:

The inference best supported by passage 30 from the texts provided is that of the regret and guilt experienced by the narrator due to his actions, which culminated in horrifying supernatural consequences. The presence of the corpse and the cat reveal his murderous act and lead to his imminent capture. These elements of the gothic genre reflect the themes of guilt, the supernatural, and retribution, which are common in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the likely author of these passages.

The feelings of terror and awe experienced by witnesses, as well as the narrator's own swooning state, suggest the intense emotional impact of the event. Furthermore, the descriptions throughout the texts emphasize the eerie and haunting atmosphere of the settings, another hallmark of Poe's writing style. The revelation of the cat and the corpse seem to be supernatural occurrences, symbolizing the narrator's inescapable guilt and the consequences he cannot evade.