Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

The Elements

Man vs. nature is one of the great themes of literature, and Poe puts it on display for us in his own scary style. The narrator constantly battles the ocean, the storms, the currents and finally the whirlpool… all of which stem from the natural world. But clever Poe invests them with otherworldly qualities, suggesting that some supernatural force may be behind them, which makes them about ten times scarier.