Guest lecture on Poe's short stories by Jay Mehta sir.

#GUEST LECTURE BY DR. JAY MEHTA.

We have often guest lectures in our English Department MKBU. Head of Department Dr. Dilip Barad invites various Professors from other universities. In the Same manner, From 18th to 22september, we had the lecture by Dr. Jay Mehta who has great skill to teach Edger Allen Poe’s short stories. Dr. Jay Mehta is one of former student and gem of our English Department MKBU. He is Lecturer at R.C.Technical College Ahmedabad. In the very beginning of this 4day session, he told us that- I will not let you feel bored in the class; and to prove this he used various techniques of teaching he taught us Poe's short stories with poems and Ghazals. He has good knowledge about Poe and his stories because he has completed his Ph.D. in this subject. Before the session, he gave us a very interesting task based on our real life and related to Poe's characteristic of Poe's story like you ever got angry or feel murderer? Do you believe in Ghost or not so on. To read pre-thinking task click here.

#He taught us 6 stories of Poe.

#Characteristics of his stories.

• Insanity versus rationality
• Obsession
• Man's relationship with death
• Love and hate
• Curiosity
• The double self

1) The Tell-Tale Heart

 #Theme

• ØVersions of Reality
• ØCunning and Cleverness
• ØThe Home
• ØMortality
• ØTime 

2) The Black Cat

3) The Fall of the House of Usher

#Theme

•  ØMorality
•   ØMadness
•   ØFear
•   ØIncest
•   ØFriendship
•   ØBurial
•   ØThe Art

4) The Cask of Amontillado

#Theme

• ØFreedom and Confinement
• ØBetrayal
• ØDrugs and Alcohol
• ØMortality
• ØFoolishness and Folly 

5) The Purloined Letter

#Theme

• ØCunning and Cleverness
• ØLies and Deceit
• ØVersions of Reality
• ØPower
• ØRules and Order 

6) The Gold Bug

Jay sir has started teaching us horror stories of Poe.  he said that -“Poe has believed that not a single word should be wasted.” Sir has made us realize by reading original stories that every word has something to convey and every word is connected. In horror stories of Poe, he shows us the human beings who have over acuteness of senses, who are cold-blooded murderers. They don’t have guilt on their acts. They called their act of murder a task, an assignment, a project, which are used in the positive sense but they are using it differently or they are trying to make us think positively on their act. Most of the stories have the first-person narrator but some also have the third-person narrator. With the use of psychology and Freud, sir make it easy to understand. “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The Cask of Amontillado” these are the horror story and “The Purloined Letter” and “The Gold Bug” are the detective and treasure hunt stories.

My learning experience: Without any doubt, I can say that Jay sir is a great teacher. The teaching style was very interesting because we couldn't feel boredom because sir had various examples to teach this story. I liked the teaching method of Jay sir because he was explaining the story with psychoanalytical perspective and reality-based examples.He increased our vocabulary of Gothic. The surprising thing was that a soft-hearted person is teaching us stories of horror, terror, murder etc. 

“A poem a day keeps psychiatrist away”- these are the words of Jay sir and at last day he ended with poetry session.