A Comparison of Alfred Hitchcock and Edgar Allan Poe Fear, terror and suspense are the most vivid emotions created by Poe's stories and by Hitchcock's films. Several themes are common to both: the madness that exists in the world, the paranoia caused by isolation which guides people's actions, the conflict between appearance and reality along with the double aspect of the human nature, and the power of the dead over the living. Not only the themes are similar in both men's work but also the details through which a story is written or shown. The similar themes and