The Tell Tale Heart And The Black Cat

Edgar Allen Poe, although considered an outstanding author and poet, struggled with pain and death which he had endured throughout his lifetime. These experiences are reflected in his writings. For instance, “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” which are both independent stories of Poe with distinct storylines shared a few commonalities. This includes the presence of death, the literary use of repetition and a late-night setting. In “The Raven”, the narrator has lost his wife and is desperate to reunite with her. When the raven first appears on top of his door, he hopes that it has come to bring him back his Lenore or to take him to her. The death of his loved one, Lenore, within the short poem leaves the narrator in a desperate and melancholy state. It reaches the point where he begins to grow frustrated when the bird doesn’t answer his questions about his deceased lover. In the text, it says “From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore.” This quote shows the aftermath and effects of death especially when it leaves you without a loved one. Similarly, in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, a life is also taken away. In the short story, the narrator seeks to commit murder to free himself of the old man’s “evil vulture eye.” He describes it as, “the eye of a vulture- a pale blue eye, with a film over it” and while it is not specific whether the man was simply blind or had a fake eye, the narrator was paranoid. His paranoia drove him mad although he claimed not to be and

“The Black Cat” is one of Poe’s more gruesome stories. It is one of the darkest stories he has written. The narrator opens the story by saying he is sane. It is the night before he dies. The story talks about the narrator’s past and how he knew so many people who all

In both stories both narrators are thematic symbols of the dark side of the human mind. As the story commences both narrators try to rationalize their twisted thinking. They both help the reader in seeing their point of view, to witness their struggles of controlling their anger, in their obsession, and their distress. The reader rides along with the narrator as they both follow down the same path, they are both slowly being consumed by their fear. The "...pale blue eye” was watching him making his "...blood [run] cold" (Poe). The cat stood as a "memory of [his] former crime" (Poe). As these thoughts run through their minds, they become fixated on them. Soon their obsession on the eye and the cat will lead to violence. No matter what method they need to use, they have an irresistible urge to get rid of their obsession. Poe has the

The life of Edgar Allan Poe is not a tale of ease. Poe’s life was full of personal and fiscal disaster. These disasters help to mold some of the most ominous and intellectually challenging poetry ever written. For the short duration of Poe’s life, he was seen as a literary critic rather than an author. To the modern generation his unbeknown status seems bafflingly inconceivable, considering his now acclaimed publications. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing was very much dictated by his life. The mournful tone of Edgar Allan Poe’s life created his literature; death and all his friends narrated Poe’s life. Edgar Allan Poe shows his life’s constant despair through his poetry and short story writings.

The Narrator in “The Black Cat” is explained as a man who fell into alcoholism and let deception take control over his mindset (Poe 79). His change of perspective over things causes him to believe his beloved first black cat (Pluto) is evil and demonic when the cat bites him one day (Poe 80). During the illusion from the excessive alcohol, he hangs Pluto (Poe 80). From guilt further on from killing his first cat, the narrator adopts another black cat. A while later, he comes to believe that the new cat has the same characteristics that Pluto had (Poe 82). In an act of fit from the new Black cat almost tripping him on the cellar stairs, the narrator starts to try to kill him with an axe (Poe 84). His wife comes in and tries to stop him, but instead that causes him to kill her. The narrator hides his wife’s body in a cellar wall, meanwhile the cat vanished (Poe 84). Four days later, the police came to do a thorough search. The narrator acted strangely calm and innocent, as if he had done nothing. They discovered her corpse with the cat standing on her head howling in the cellar wall though, and took the narrator into custody. (Poe 85-86).

Starting off With Tell Tale Heart, in the beginning, the narrator of the story is shown as a caring person who allowed the old man to leave with him and help the old men with what he needed. But later on in the story, he starts getting very paranoid he says, “But why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them (Tell-tale heart).” The disease that he is talking about was nervousness his nervousness makes him start to become paranoid of the old guys eye. He called his eye the ‘Vulture eye” and described it as a,” A pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold. Which led to the narrator going mad and plan the old man’s death. This led to Poe’s character turning mad which led to him planning to make old man’s life away. He says that for one week he would go into the old man’s room at midnight and look at him for a couple minutes then later on in the

The narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” is unmarried; not so in “The Black Cat.” The narrator in “The TellTale Heart” smothers an old man with whom he lives and conceals the body below the floorboards of his bedroom chamber. The narrator in “The Black Cat” murders his wife with an axe and walls up the corpse in the cellar of the apartment in which they live. The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” carefully planned the murder of the old man; in “The Black Cat,” the murder is unplanned, a crime of passion. These are minor differences, however. In truth, the narrators of both stories are strikingly similar. As evidenced in the summaries above, both narrators are guilty of murder and experience an irresistible urge to confess to their crimes. While each explains the circumstances of his hideous actions, he also attempts to defend his sanity. Each provides a rational explanation of his mental fixations and portrays his criminal activity as excusable within the logic of his confessions. These two narrators use the form of the confession to explain away the content of their actions, but Poe uses this intimate connection between form and content to undermine their reliability as

Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be one of the greatest American writers of all time. His writing is dark and sinister. He wrote of death, murder, psychosis, and obsession. One could only imagine what would bring a person to write such morbid stories. Perhaps, it may be attributed to Poe’s childhood, a past that was sad and far from average. Both of his parents died when he was only three years of age (Shelley). The death of his parents caused a separation from his siblings and he moved to live with his relatives (Shelley). In later years, Poe endured poverty and the loss of his wife-to-be to another man (Clark). Possibly, without those troubling experiences, Poe couldn’t have imagined such eerie and enthralling tales. Some of his most

In this exhilarating yet suspenseful movie by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat” will leave you in suspense after every scene. As you begin the movie, you are greeted by a narrator who tells you that he is going to die tomorrow. He then continues by telling you about his life as a baby and how he was a very well-natured child. The narrator grows up to marry a woman who shares the same love for animals as he does. They have many pets but the most important one is their black cat named Pluto. The bond between the man and the cat grew for several years until he picked up a serious drinking problem. The narrator began to have a violent streak of swearing at his wife and abusing her and the animals, but he never abused the cat until one night. That

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat," symbolism is used to show the narrator's capacity for violence, madness, and guilt. "The Black Cat," written by Edgar Allan Poe serves as a reminder for all of us. The Capacity for violence and horror lies within each of us, no matter how docile and humane our disposition might appear. In this story, the narrator portrays a man who is fond of animals, had a tender heart, and is happily married. Within several years of his marriage, his general temperament and character make a radical alteration for the worse. He grows moodier, more irritable, and more inconsiderate of the feelings of others. This change for the worse caused by alcohol, ends in the narrator's waiting on death row for the murder of his wife. The symbolism of the first black cat, the second black cat, and the white spot illustrate the narrator's expanding capacity for evil and perverseness.

Edgar Allan Poe, a well-known writer even today, was born January 19, 1809, and died October 7, 1848. During his life time, Poe had written sixty-six short stories and seventy poems, and his writing was inspired by a dark past. Poe’s mother died of tuberculosis after his father abandoned them. Then, while living with a foster family, his foster mother died and his foster father disliked him. These events caused Poe to have a particular style of writing and in each of these a reader is able to see similarities between the characters, theme, setting, and Poe’s use of symbolism. In ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ a reader can make these connections and see how Edgar Allan Poe put his feelings into words.

In “The Tell-Tale heart” and “The Black Cat” there are many similarities from the murder and the motive of the killer. The man in “The Black Cat” is irritated and cannot stand to look at the cat or animals, he feels compelled to harm them much like the man in “The Tell Tale Heart” feels towards the man's grey eye. These things is what the murderers claim drove them to commit the crime. Neither of the cat or old man had hurt the perpetrators in anyway, in fact both the men in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart” cared for the very things they had killed. “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me.” - “The Tell-Tale Heart” and in the alcohol crazed killer in “The Black Cat” says

The reader is subject to feelings of fear, anxiety and shock. Also horror genres generally anticipates the characters psychology. It shows how the person can go from a stable individual to loosing all sanity which was also a characteristic offered in The Black Cat. While The Black Cat offers the psychology of the unknown man we are also offered this particular element in Poe's The Tell Tale Heart. One can see signs of deterioration of the narrator. He continually lets it be known that he is fine and has no symptoms of anger however his actions state other wise. The narrator also suggest that no feelings of remorse or guilt can be noted almost as if no wrong has been done. The narrator is going through a downward spiral of psychological matters which is an element offered on horror fiction as this allows the reader to achieve those emotions of anxiety, fear and again suspense. Poe offers almost all elements of horror throughout his short stories without the gore and brutality which ultimately makes him a phenomenal writer. Poe is more in tune with allowing the reader to accomplish emotion while allowing them the reader to get a sense of who they are in terms of what frightens them and offers them

Edgar Allan Poe is known for his dark and thought-provoking horror stories. In particular, The Black Cat does just that. The story focuses on the rationalizations of the horrific actions of the narrator. A black cat is introduced to pounce down on the rationalization of the narrator’s actions. Edgar Allan Poe also constructs a story where the main basis of the narrator’s decisions are ethical egoism and the principles of conscience. Poe constructs the black cat as the conscience of the story to depict the guilt of the narrator. This is clearly emphasized when the black cat is in the presence of the narrator, but the consciousness of guilt is also present in the absence of the black cat.

Edgar Allen Poe has created many stories that are dark, suspenseful, and murderous such as The Tell- Tale Heart and The Black Cat. His works tend to resemble one another in style, mood, theme, and plot. The ways in which these elements are displayed show contrast between the two. The Tell- Tale Heart and The Black Cat are two brutal tales with similar themes about being insane. Both stories are told from the first person point of view with a maniacal narrator.