Comparing Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart And The Raven

Two works by the same author will often have very similar characteristics. The Black Cat and the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe is a perfect example of this. Both of the works have very similar aspects such as characters, tone, and mood. Tone and mood are expressed strongly throughout both of the short stories, this creates a very dark feeling which is distinct in both of the short stories. Characters also plays a very important part of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. Many of the characters that Edgar Allan Poe portrays are dark, mysterious, and deranged.

Both the short story by Edgar Allan Poe and Annett Jung's animation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" describe the terrifying hauntings of inner guilt. Within the story, the main character's deranged profile helped exaggerate how guilt can affect a person. Altogether, the story conveyed the message in a more effective way, as it described the narrator's reactions in greater detail and especially built his character.

Madness, delusion, lunacy. As I know it, madness is losing your grip on what reality is, the inability to perceive life as it is. To the artist, madness is the most creative lenses that a work can be shown in. Edgar Allen Poe was quite well versed in this realm, as many of his works have dealt with this subject. In two of his works, “The Raven” and “The Telltale Heart”, the unreliable narrator seems to be devolving into insanity and paranoia in both works.

Chills run down your spine as a breath of wind rushes past your frame. Incoherent whispering fills your ear due to the flowing wind… Edgar Allen Poe, one of America’s most prolific writers, wrote numerous horror stories that defined the genre for modern writing. Effort went into creating the style that he was known for, but was it constant from one story to the next? Despite differences in plot and length there are similarities of tone, setting, structure, narration, and character between two of his most famous stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” that allude to Poe’s true writing style.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long, I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” This excerpt from the famous poem “The Raven” shows Edgar Allan Poe’s notoriously dark style that still intrigues people to this day. Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up to be a world famous poet. He died October 7, 1849 at the age of 40. Poe’s poetry created an uproar in the world of poets encouraging a darker mind set for both poems and short stories.

Edger Allen Poe was an inspiring poet that was known for creating many American feel with mystery, horror, and dark writing. One of his top pieces of writing would be known as a man vs. self-situation called “The Raven.” The Raven have gained many positive reviews, throughout my research that some called it to be the most perfect poet to ever be established from American writing. Throughout this research paper it will give key concepts on why did Edgar wrote this story, how does it reflect on my perspective, how the critical receivers respond to the, how did this became favorite for all readers as a whole, and how does horror stories have an impact on those who is not used to reading. By the end of this paper it would be in full detail on how did Edger Allen Poe so famous and how through his works influence this type of genre for many enthusiastic authors.

In Edgar Allen Poe's “The Tell- Tale Heart,” he reveals in detail how a person’s inner turmoil and terror can cause one to become mad. Poe uses baffling characters, figurative language and a twisted plot to allow the readers to believe the main character is indeed mad. The story is told through an unknown and unreliable narrator. The first person narrative technique is used to hear the protagonists thoughts, feelings and motivations. This can be troublesome because the reader is only getting the narrator’s perspective of the events, characters and plot. In the story from start to finish the narrator attempts to rationalize his irrational behavior. He states that he is a "very dreadfully nervous" but not mad. The narrator wants the reader to be on his side and feel compassionate for him. He repeats that he is not mad in order to convince himself that he is sane. This is a tale only a madman could tell.

The events in people’s lives shape and influence the way the they think. They are later defined by the way they act, with every action having a reaction. For writers, it can and will affect the story. One can look at the story and sometimes see the author’s life. Edgar Allan Poe’s

Edgar Allan Poe and “The Raven” The famous poem, “The Raven” reflects the author Edgar Allan Poe’s life in many ways. One way his life is reflected in the poem is when the text states, “...while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.” This connects Poe to the poem because he studied latin, which is a dead language.

The short story Tell Tale Heart is written by Edgar Allan Poe. It is a story is about the narrator and he tells what has happened to him recently. It shows the narrator having madness, obsession and feeling guiltiness of what deed that he has committed. The central idea of madness is developed when the narrator starts to speak of the old man’s eye. The old man’s eye had caused him his madness because it reminded him of an eye of a vulture.

Throughout all the short stories and poems wrote by Edgar Allan Poe, some connections can be made on the content. The Black Cat, and The Raven, are two narratives wrote by Poe, that unveil the themes and symbols he often uses in his work. Poe is on the mysterious side, but he is also taking the life he is given, and making his narratives raw and realist by some degree. Poe uses techniques that left him express his imagination through writing. There are many different ideas and questions rising from all his work. The Black Cat and The Raven, are two narratives that use similar themes and symbols that allow readers to receive a small connection of the madness inside of the narrators.

Concentration can lead to oblivion to things around people and can lead to devastating results. In the stories “The Oval Potrait” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” written by the famous Edgar Allen Poe,both main characters distraction in a physycal object leads to life changing effects. In the story "The Oval Portrait" a mad man painter driven by the beauty of art, paints his beloved oblivious to her plungeting health, killing her. The following comes a story named the “Tell- Tale Heart” in which the narrator is determined to kill an innocent man for the appearance of his eye the guilt further leading him to go insane and admit his candor confession of his horrible crime. Both characters share dedication, loss and faults of action linking to excessive pride.

Even though he knows that the raven can only speak that one word, he keeps asking him questions that get more painful and personal to get the response of the raven “ nevermore”, which caused him even more suffering. The self-torture reaches to a level that he cannot take anymore, to the point that he starts losing his sanity and the poem then naturally

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1839, can be compared to Poe’s later work “The Tell-Tale Heart”, published in 1843. In both gothic stories, there are physical deformities, mental illness, and despicable crimes. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Roderick Usher, the main character, and one of the last of the Usher blood line, had a twin sister, Madeline, who suffered from a mysterious illness. After believing she had died, Roderick learned that was not the case --Madeline was still alive-- yet he buried her anyway. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, an unnamed narrator lived with an old man, whom he was plotting to murder because he wanted to help rid the world of the old man’s evil eye. In both Poe’s stories death is a very prominent theme (Davis).

Loss and grief are two feelings that many people have experienced or that authors or musicians have explored to share with an audience. An example of one writer who achieves this is one of America’s most well-known authors and poets, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe explores and informs readers about darker topics like grief and death while captivating and immersing the audience by establishing a detailed tone throughout his poems. Published in 1845, Poe’s most famous poem, “The Raven,” delves into the dark, sullen side of humanity by telling the story of a man whose wife had passed away. Throughout the poem, the narrator hears tapping and knocking, which he suspects is his wife, on his door and window; however, a raven enters the room as a representation of the wisdom it will bring the narrator about life after death. Meanwhile, “Annabel Lee,” another one of Poe’s most famous poems reveals the more hopeful and optimistic perspective of losing a loved one. While Edgar Allan Poe uses different tones and plotlines in “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee,” both stories portray how grief and the obscurity of the afterlife can affect people.