The Oblong Box (short story)

The oblong box (english The Oblong Box ) is a short story that was written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1844. It is about a sea voyage and a mysterious box.

Content

The nameless protagonist and narrator rented on the packet ship Independence of Captain Hardy one for a trip from Charleston to New York. In the passenger list he found the name of his friend the artist Cornelius Wyatt, with whom he studied together at the time.

Regular the ship on 15 June would have saved, but this date is postponed by a week due to " circumstances been incurred ." Wyatt has an oblong box as extra baggage, which assigns the narrator a copy of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, however, he wondered about the smell out of the box, which he held for paint or tar. Striking was the behavior of Wyatt because the narrator known to be a melancholy enthusiasm had given way and he kept his distance from the passengers.

Every night at around 11 clock Wyatt's wife left the cabin and went into an extra cabin, where they remained until morning. The narrator thought he heard how his friend Wyatt the nails of the box suggests a wollumhüllten hammer out to open it. And then he heard a sob or marbles, which he interpreted as that of the artistic enthusiasm; again at daybreak, the driving of the nails into their old holes.

On the seventh day at sea, as there was the Independence of Cape Hatteras, a storm is coming on, which develops after two days to a hurricane and the ship until then in good condition located damaged. The majority of the passengers took refuge in a large dinghy, fourteen other passengers, including the narrator, Captain Hardy and Wyatt and his wife took place in a dinghy on the stern of the ship package. Wyatt, however, wanted to bring the elongated box still from on board the packet ship on the dinghy, which they tried to dissuade, whereupon he jumped into the sea to swim to the package ship him. Once there, he grabbed a rope in Lee, goes on board, pulled the box out of the cabin on deck, wrapped a rope around and the box and rushed with her into the sea, where it sank faster than expected by the narrator.

After four days the dinghy landed in a bay opposite the Roanoke Iceland. One month after the sinking of Independence met the narrator Captain Hardy and learned that the wife of Wyatt died before the trip and Wyatt wanted to bring the corpse of his mother, but due to the circumstances that many passengers had canceled the crossing because of a corpse on board, camouflaged to the coffin as Passagiergut. Wyatt's pseudo- wife was a servant.