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Personal Flaws In The Tell-Tale Heart And The Black Cat

Decent Essays

Poe has a history of presenting characters with personal flaws who often confess to atrocious deeds. Both The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat tell the story of a seemingly senseless murder complicated by the vaugery of preternatural occurrences. The reader is forced to question whether or not they should believe what they are being told. Both of these narrators, the wife killer and the landlord killer, are unreliable and have a similar theme. The narrators are both mentally unstable however their conditions vary. The psychological implications of each character's’ attitude suggests while both are crazy, one is a sociopath and the other is a psychopath. Both stories start off by briefing the listener on the elaborate scheme of events to come while introducing important character flaws. The narrator of The Black Cat shows evident signs of being mad through his actions and alcoholism. Essentially, the narrator cuts out his cat's eye, hangs the cat, possibly burns down his house, and kills his wife. Throughout these events alcohol complicates the plot line and hinders the narrator's ability to accurately tell the story. The narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart also uses his actions and personal flaws to convey his unreliability as a storyteller. The story begins with the narrator posing the question of his sanity and disproving the accusation with his evidence being his calm and meticulous demeanor. He continues on to explain that he would sneak into his landlord's apartment at

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