Similarities Between The Black Cat And The Cask Of Amontillado

Edgar Allan Poe was a man who wrote poems and short stories of mystery and macabre from the ages 18 to 40, where he then died of unknown reasons. Poe’s writing had a consistent theme throughout them at a certain point. That theme was that he couldn’t get over his wife’s death; she had died of tuberculosis. Two of these stories were titled “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat.” In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a man kills another man because his eye made him feel weak and fragile. He hid the body in the floor only to be found out later because his own heart and mind were beating so hard he couldn’t take the guilt and admitted to the murder. Then, in “The Black Cat,” a man rips the eye out of his own cat then later hangs it. After that, he

Edgar Allan Poe is known for some of the most horrifying stories ever written through out time. He worked with the natural world, animals, and weather to create chilling literature. Two most notable thrillers are “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Poe was infatuated with death, disfigurement, and dark characteristics of the world. He could mix characters, setting, theme,and mood in a way that readers are automatically drawn into reading. Both of these short stories have the same major aspects in common.

All this saneness is achieved through a series of household events. "In their consequences, these events terrifies, tortures, and destroys the Narrator" (Poe 522). The Narrator is married and has pets. "They have birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat" (Poe 522). The cat's name is Pluto, however in contrast to Montresor's friend, Pluto, the cat, is the Narrator's friend. In "The Black Cat" the Narrator is an alcoholic unlike in "The Cask of Amontillado" the enemy is the alcoholic.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado” are both about murder. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator is a man who becomes an alcoholic and kills his wife in the cellar. In “The Cask of Amontillado” Montresor is a man who takes revenge on a friend by leaving him to die in the catacombs. Both characters are guilty of murder, but reader may think that the narrator deserves a milder punishment for the following reasons: he lost control, he did not plan his murder, and he was an alcoholic and had no control over his actions.

“The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Black Cat”, are short stories written by the notorious Edgar Allan Poe. Poe did a splendid job illustrating the best capacity of the human mind to observe its own deterioration. The narrator is fully aware of his mental deterioration, and at certain points in the stories, he recognizes the change that is occurring within him. Both short stories involve somewhat of an obsession with alcohol. Poe’s gothic tales was written to achieve an effect of human insanity, appalling insanity, and horrific murders.

In the short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat”, the author, Edgar Allan Poe uses imagery and character detail to create a frightening mood. “The Tell-Tale Heart” features an insane and easily irritable Nameless Narrator who plots the murder of his dear friend, simply because the look of his eye bothers him. After successfully taking the life of his friend, the Nameless Narrator proceeds to hide the body in floor of the dead man’s home, and then confess to killing him, resulting in his arrest and placement on death row. Now in “The Black Cat” the drunk, detached Nameless Narrator welcomes a black cat, similar to the one he previously owned (and killed), into his home. After scaring the cat away by attempting to kill it

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” incorporated images and hidden meanings that resulted in making him do disturbing things that will keep you reading until the end. In the story, the bad things he did in life led him to have a constant guilty feeling. Poe writes this short story as if you would be in his shoes with him with deep images. In the end, Poe shows us that his guilt builds up until he can not hold it in anymore.

The mood of “The Black Cat” is one of perverseness, fright, and uneasiness. The narrator is clearly in sorrow and is an unreliable narrator, there is also a feeling of suspense and action as the narrator leads up to the way they discover he murdered his wife.

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories have been universally regarded as the height of the gothic fiction genre, they were mostly published between 1830s-1840s. What I found particularly interesting about Poe’s short stories is what he called ‘a unity of effect’, he believes that every aspect of his stories should reflect the overall atmosphere, he eliminates all unnecessary detail, keeping his stories rather short. He was the first author to differentiate short stories from novels, as he strongly believes stories would be more effective if it could be read in one sitting. The stories I have chosen from Poe’s collection include: “The Black cat”, “The Tell Tale Heart”, “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Ligeia”. Although each stories may have a number

“The Black Cat,” is a typical work of Edgar Allen Poe. Poe was a master of the horror genre, and it was a focus on many of his works such as: “Berenice” or “The Tell-Tale Heart..” The themes evident in the “The Black Cat” are very typical of Poe’s writing. His themes focused on dark matters, melancholy in nature. The themes present in most of Poe’s works tend to be dark in nature because it was a reflection of his own life. However, Poe did not only write scary or depressing stories as seen in his “Eleonora.” (a love story), or “The Spectacles” (a comedy about love at first sight) or even “The Purloined Letter”” (a detective story.).

The author I have chosen for my short stories is Edgar Allen Poe. The two short stories I have chosen are “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado”. I chose to Edgar Allen Poe because he is the only author from the list that I knew. I did look into other author’s and their stories, but I ultimately decided to choose Poe. Poe is known for his unique and dark way of writing that is characterized as Gothic. I am not really into most things that are Gothic, but his stories and poems are always really interesting to me. The common theme I have chosen for these stories is alcoholism. In “The Black Cat” the man has a change in character once he starts falling into drunkenness. I have read “The Cask of Amontillado” in my high school English class

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is a timeless classic, illustrating many different elements of horror. In this story, emotions run high, there are some peculiar/sketchy settings, and grotesque descriptions. The list truly goes on and on, but the focus is primarily on these elements. Examining these elements and understanding them really brings a new understanding to the piece.

So far, I have pointed out many similarities between The Black Cat and Tell-Tale Heart to illuminate Poe’s style. All the similarities are to serve specific purposes for Poe. So, by maintaining his techniques and style in both of these stories, Edgar Allen Poe reached his main goal: one single effect in the short stories. In both of the stories, the single effect was horror, and Edgar Allen Poe made other supportive techniques to serve this aim. He was successful as we can refer from his stories’ still being examined and his being a pioneer of short, horror stories.

In the short story, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe conveys many different types of the horror genre. During the early 1800s, he wrote many short stories and poems that belonged to the horror genre. His famous works are, “The Raven”, “The Tell Tale Heart”, and “The Pendulum”. Over 400 years later, all of his stories are still recognized today and read by many, making him one of the best writers of all time. In the story “The Black Cat”, it starts with a man explaining the last few horrific days of his life. The man then goes on with his early life and his tendency to nurture and love animals. He becomes an alcoholic, and learns that he is violent and disturbed by his wife and animals. As the story progresses, he continues to find anger within himself to make him harm his family.