# The Oblong Box explained — Short Fiction

> Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Edgar Allan Poe.

## What happens

The narrator recounts a voyage from Charleston to New York aboard the packet-ship Independence, where he becomes obsessively curious about his friend, the artist Cornelius Wyatt, who has booked three staterooms for himself, his wife, and his two sisters. The narrator's suspicions grow as he observes Mrs. Wyatt sneaking into the extra room at night and hears Wyatt prying open an oblong box. He later learns that the box contains the embalmed body of Wyatt's wife, who died suddenly before the voyage, and that the woman he saw was her maid impersonating her. The revelation haunts him.

## Themes in this chapter

### Death and Mortality

The central mystery revolves around the concealed corpse of Wyatt's wife, and the narrator's haunting by her memory underscores the inescapable presence of death.

### Madness and Psychological Decay

The narrator's obsessive curiosity and Wyatt's hysterical fit suggest psychological instability, while the narrator's sleeplessness and haunting visions point to mental decay.

### Isolation and Alienation

Wyatt's misanthropy and the narrator's self-imposed avoidance of him after the fit highlight themes of isolation, as does the secretive nature of the voyage.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown Narrator

The narrator is a former fellow student of Cornelius Wyatt, prone to morbid curiosity and obsession, who becomes fixated on the mystery of the oblong box.

### Cornelius Wyatt

A young artist of genius temperament, traveling with his wife and sisters; he secretly transports his wife's embalmed body in an oblong box.

### Lady Rowena

Mistakenly referenced; the actual deceased wife of Wyatt, whose body is concealed in the box, though she is not named in this chapter.

### Captain Hardy

The captain of the Independence who arranges for the corpse to be brought aboard as merchandise and advises the narrator to avoid Wyatt.

## Key lines

> Nine tenths of the passengers would have abandoned the ship rather than take passage with a dead body.

Most passengers would refuse to sail with a corpse on board.

_Explains the need for secrecy regarding the deceased wife's body._

> I had been nervous—drank too much strong green tea, and slept ill at night—in fact, for two nights I could not be properly said to sleep at all.

The narrator's anxiety and excessive tea consumption caused severe insomnia.

_Sets up the narrator's wakeful observations of Wyatt's activities._

> There is a countenance which haunts me, turn as I will. There is an hysterical laugh which will forever ring within my ears.

The narrator is tormented by the memory of Wyatt's face and laughter.

_Reveals the lasting psychological impact of the voyage on the narrator._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_14_se/chapters/the-oblong-box
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_14_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_14_se/chapters