Paragraphs are numbered for ease of reference. Use this with our FREE Introduction to Short Stories two-page handout.Įach classic story is copyright free in Australia, the U.K. These short story studies can be used to build a short story unit, to supplement other texts, or as a standby lesson. As Valdemar's voice shouts „dead! dead!” repeatedly, the narrator takes Valdemar out of his trance in the process, Valdemar's entire body immediately decays into a „nearly liquid mass of loathsome-of detestable putrescence.Short stories are a vital part of English literature. In between trance and wakefulness, Valdemar's tongue begs to quickly either put him back to sleep or to wake him. During this time Valdemar is without pulse, heartbeat or perceptible breathing, his skin cold and pale.įinally, the narrator makes attempts to awaken Valdemar, asking questions which are answered with difficulty, his voice seemingly coming from his swollen, blackened tongue. The narrator leaves him in a mesmeric state for seven months, checking on him daily. In a trance, he reports first that he is dying – then that he is dead. Valdemar is quickly mesmerized, just as the two physicians return and serve as additional witnesses. Again, Valdemar insists he is willing to take part and asks the narrator to hurry, for fear he has „deferred it for too long”. After confirming again that Valdemar is willing to be part of the experiment, the narrator comes back the next night with two nurses and a medical student as witnesses.
Valdemar's two physicians inform the narrator of their patient's poor condition. Valdemar consents to the experiment and informs the narrator by letter that he will probably die in twenty-four hours. He considers experimenting on his friend Ernest Valdemar, an author whom he had previously mesmerized, and who has recently been diagnosed with phthisis (tuberculosis).
He points out that, as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person. He is interested in Mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnagogic state by the influence of magnetism, a process which later developed into hypnotism. The narrator presents the facts of the extraordinary case of Valdemar which have incited public discussion.
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