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The Cask Of Amontillado, By Edgar Allen Poe

Decent Essays

Try to imagine how you would feel if every family member you truly loved died. Edgar Allen Poe didn’t need to imagine this situation; he lived it. Poe had a miserable childhood. He lost many of his closest loved ones to death, which affected his mind. He became focused on death and its effects on those left behind. His obsession with death and loss can be seen in most of his writings. If one looks carefully at five of Poe’s writings, “The Raven,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” one can see that there are patterns and similarities in his many diverse stories. However, despite some similarities, Poe’s main characters are generally different.
Within the five aforementioned stories, it is clear that the main characters are all easily recognizable and different than each other. The narrator of “The Cask of Amontillado” is wealthy, as we can see from his mansion and his wine collection, and in control of himself at all times, which is how he manages to avoid getting caught for his crime. On the other hand, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” does not seem to have much money, since he rents a room in the old man’s house. He also loses control of himself, first committing his crime, then getting caught for it when he can’t handle hearing the beating heart any more. In “The Black Cat,” the narrator starts out rich, living in a large house with many pets, but loses it all in a fire. Similarly, his

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