The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe

The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe

Well. In this post I'm going to share with you a famous and widely interpreted short story, 'The Oval Portrait' by the great American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It is a short story with Gothic overtones. A story within a story.The time is the first half of the nineteenth century. The place is a mansion in the Apennines, a mountain range in central Italy.

Characters

1.Narrator: Wounded man who takes refuge with his valet in an abandoned chateau in Italy. As he settles into an apartment, he believes he is beginning to develop symptoms of delirium as a result of his injury.
2.Pedro: Narrator's valet.
3.Woman in the Portrait: Young wife who dies when her husband neglects her.
4.Painter: Famous artist and husband of the woman in the portrait. He is so obsessed with his work that he ignores his wife. When painting her portrait, he sees her as an object to be captured on canvas, not as a woman who yearns for his love.

Point of View

The narrator tells the story in first-person point of view. However, when presenting the history of the oval portrait, he quotes directly from a book that he finds in the apartment of the chateau. The quotation begins with these words: "She was a maiden of rarest beauty. . . ." The rest of the story consists entirely of a continuation of the quotation.

 DOWNLOAD Complete Narration of THE OVAL PORTRAIT

সারসংক্ষেপ ( দি ওভাল পোট্রেট )

গল্পের কথক আহত ছিলেন । রাতও ঘনিয়ে আসছে , তাই তিনি ও তার চাকর এক পরিত্যক্ত প্রাসাদে রাতটা কাটাতে বাধ্য হলেন । প্রাসাদের একটা অদ্ভুত আকৃতির ঘর ও ঘরের ভিতরের ছবি আর ছবি আঁকার জিনিসপত্র দেখে তিনি আকৃষ্ট হলেন । ঘরটা সম্ভবত কোন এক আর্টিষ্টের স্টুডিও ছিল । ঐ ঘরেই থাকার সিদ্ধান্ত নিলেন । রাত বাড়ছে । চাকর পেদ্রো ঘুমিয়ে গেছে । বালিশের উপরে একটা বই রাখা ছিল । বড় মোমবাতিদানের আলোয় পড়তে শুরু করলেন । বেশ ভালই লাগছিল তার । বইটাতে এই ঘরের সব ছবির ইতিহাস ও বিভিন্ন রকম শিল্পরীতির বর্ণনা ছিল । রাত বাড়তে লাগল , আর তার সঙ্গে পাল্লা দিয়ে বাড়তে লাগল তার আগ্রহ । মোমবাতিদানটা আরো কাছে নিয়ে এলেন ।  এর ফলে যা হল তাকে অদ্ভুতই বলা যায় । ঘরের অন্ধকারাচ্ছন্ন একটা অংশ আলোকিত হয়ে উঠল । আর সেই আলোতে একটা ছবি দেখতে পেলেন তিনি ।  এটা আগে চোখে পরেনি তার । এক পরিপূর্ন যুবতীর ছবি । এক ঝলক তাকিয়েই চোখ বন্ধ করে নিলেন ।  মানে , বন্ধ করতে বাধ্য হলেন । কেন এমন হল ! নিজের উত্তেজিত মনকে শান্ত করার চেষ্টা করলেন । একটা সুন্দর ওভাল ফ্রেমে এক অতিসুন্দরী । শিল্পরীতির দিক থেকেও অতুলনীয় । আর একবার দেখলেন ছবিটা । প্রায় ঘন্টাখানেক একদৃষ্টিতে চেয়ে থাকলেন । বুঝলেন ছবিটার বিশেষত্ব । ছবিটা প্রাণবন্ত , জীবন্ত । আলোটা আবার আগের জায়গায় রেখে দিলেন । এই ছবিটা সম্বন্ধে ঐ বইটায় কি লেখা আছে দেখার জন্য বইটা খুললেন । যা দেখলেন সে আর এক গল্প –

                            ছবি-অন্ত-প্রাণ এক উদাস চিত্রকর তার রূপসী স্ত্রীর ছবি আঁকতে আঁকতে বিভোর হয়ে যায় । ছবিটাকে একদম জীবন্ত করার জন্য জেদ চেপে যায় । ঘন্টার পর ঘন্টা , দিনের পর দিন , এমনকি সপ্তাহ ব্যপী একটানা মডেল হয়ে থাকার জন্য তার স্ত্রীর শরীর থেকে যতই জীবনী-শক্তি বেড়িয়ে যেতে থাকে , ছবিটা ততই জীবন্ত হয়ে ওঠে । আর্টিষ্ট ছবি নিয়ে এতটাই মগ্ন যে তার স্ত্রীর দিকে দৃষ্টিপাত করার সময় পায়না । অবশেষে যখন আঁকা শেষ হল , সে দুপা পিছিয়ে এসে দেখল যে সত্যিই চবিটা একদম জীবন্ত মনে হচ্ছে । তারপর প্রসংশা পাবার জন্য যখন স্ত্রীর দিকে তাকাল , দেখল – মারা গেছে ।

 THE TEXT

The Oval Portrait
(1850)

by Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)

The chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Apennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. In these paintings, which depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces, but in very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the chateau rendered necessary--in these paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest; so that I bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room--since it was already night--to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed--and to throw open far and wide the fringed curtains of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself. I wished all this done that I might resign myself, if not to sleep, at least alternately to the contemplation of these pictures, and the perusal of a small volume which had been found upon the pillow, and which purported to criticise and describe them.
 

                 Long--long I read--and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by, and the deep midnight came. The position of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.
                   But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The rays of the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell within a niche of the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed-posts. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before. It was the portrait of a young girl just ripening into womanhood. I glanced at the painting hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at first apparent even to my own perception. But while my lids remained thus shut, I ran over in mind my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to gain time for thought--to make sure that my vision had not deceived me--to calm and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze. In a very few moments I again looked fixedly at the painting.
                                                               That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at once into waking life.
                                                                    The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom and even the ends of the radiant hair, melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the background of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded and filagreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself. But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person. I saw at once that the peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and of the frame, must have instantly dispelled such idea--must have prevented even its momentary entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remained, for an hour perhaps, half sitting, half reclining, with my vision riveted upon the portrait. At length, satisfied with the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the bed. I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute life-likeliness of expression, which at first startling, finally confounded, subdued and appalled me. With deep and reverent awe I replaced the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my deep agitation being thus shut from view, I sought eagerly the volume which discussed the paintings and their histories. Turning to the number which designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and quaint words which follow:

                                                               "She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee: all light and smiles, and frolicksome as the young fawn: loving and cherishing all things: hating only the Art which was her rival: dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to pourtray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour and from day to day. And he was a passionate, and wild and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastlily in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter, (who had high renown,) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak. And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well. But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from the canvas rarely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him. And when many weeks had passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast and crying with a loud voice, 'This is indeed Life itself!' turned suddenly to regard his beloved:--She was dead!"

Vocabulary and Allusions

arabesque: Symmetrical pattern of intertwining lines in the style of architecture in Arab countries. The pattern may resemble flowers, leaves, animals, or other familiar objects.
filigreed: Adorned with wire of gold, silver, or another metal that is twisted to form a pattern resembling lace..
Moresque: In the style of the Moors, nomadic Muslims of North Africa. When they occupied Spain, they constructed buildings with complex tracery.

Sully: Thomas Sully (1783-1872), a London-born American painter of elegant portraits. Among his subjects was England's Queen Victoria (1819-1901), who reigned from 1937 to 1901.
turret: Small tower built into a wall of a castle or another edifice, such as a mansion. Its roof is cone-shaped.
vignette: Painted portrait or photograph without a border. The outer parts of the image gradually fade into the background. The painting of the young lady in "The Oval Portrait" is a vignette. The narrator says of the portrait, "The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the back-ground of the whole."

  (Source- Internet)