Edgar Allan Poe is famous for the feature of sinister elements, violent behavior, and psychologically unstable characters in his literal works. Two of Poe’s well-known literary works, “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” both engage with narrators who are in an unhealthy state of mind. Both narrators successfully commit and conceal atrocious murders, but eventually, are exposed for their heinous crimes due to their own insanity. With “The Black cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe gives us two great examples of the human mind’s capacity to deceive itself, and its ability to speculate on the nature of its own destruction. Thus, this essay will present the ways in which Poe employs madness as a theme in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
Poe’s “The Black Cat”
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As a product of his imagination – the imagination that the cat avoids him – the narrator violently grabs the cat by its throat and atrociously gashes out one of its eyes. This perverse act of violence subsequently turns out to be the commencement of several such acts of perversity. For instance, we come across an additional element of perversity that gives evidence for a theme of madness in “The Black Cat.” The “spirit of perverseness” (Poe 696) that triumphs over the narrator once again is explained as an “unfathomable longing of the soul […] to offer violence to its own nature–to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only” (Poe 697). Here, the narrator attempts to rationalize this by saying that perverseness resides in the human heart and is an indivisible primal reaction that cannot be separated from the nature of Man (Poe 697). He continues by writing, “Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?” (Poe 697). Once more, the narrator makes an effort to appeal to the reader by attempting
Poe writes “The Tell Tale Heart” from the perspective of the murderer of the old man. When an author creates a situation where the central character tells his own account, the overall impact of the story is heightened. The narrator, in this story, adds to the overall effect of horror by continually stressing to the reader that he or she is not mad, and tries to convince us of that fact by how carefully this brutal crime was planned and executed. The point of view helps communicate that the theme is madness to the audience because from the beginning the narrator uses repetition, onomatopoeias, similes, hyperboles, metaphors and irony.
Edgar Allan Poe was well known for his dark stories such as, “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart.” His stories and poems focused mainly on death and the sinister side of a man’s mind. In general, many of his main characters were not mentally stable or were dealing with alcohol abuse. Poe’s life never seemed to offer him a break, he lived hardships after hardships. Nevertheless, his pain and problems contributed to numerous of his writings and poems. The reader is able to see the connections between his life and the characters. “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” although have many similarities in style, also have many differences.
	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
Edgar Allan Poe was an extraordinary author whose horror and mystery stories leave an impression on readers even today. In some of Poe’s works, the narrator’s thoughts and actions make the reader question the narrator’s sanity. Two good examples are Poe’s poem “The Raven” and his short story “The Black Cat”; there is plenty of evidence to support that both of the narrators are not completely sane. In Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Black Cat,” both narrators exhibit symptoms of mental illness, including hallucinations, illogical thinking, mood swings, and substance abuse.
What happens when an individual descends into madness? This process is the focus of both Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain.” Both texts use many structural techniques and literary devices to draw attention to the central idea of insanity. This insanity takes the form of a deviation from what the reader would consider normal. In spite of the two authors’ drastically different writing styles, one element remains constant, the masterful use of punctuation.
Edgar Allan Poe said “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” Throughout his short stories; “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe sets up his characters to subconsciously reveal their insanity. Often using syntax clues and patterns, Poe shows the madness of the narrators of his short stories. The constant theme of denial of insanity further convinces the reader of the character’s psychosis. Characters themselves often prove they are not in touch with reality through their actions. Through syntax, denial of insanity, and character’s actions, Poe allows his narrators in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” to reveal their own insanity.
Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” depicts a male narrator who begins to be malicious due to his ongoing consumption of alcohol which in turn, results in his ultimate demise. In summarization, the narrator commits multiple heinous crimes under the influence of alcohol and that can eventually portray his lost of sanity. Furthermore, by studying Sigmund Freud’s Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis along with Poe’s short story, we can perceive the short story on a psychoanalytical level. Therefore, through the lens of psychoanalysis, it is noticeable that the narrator uses alcohol as a vehicle to represses his emotions, however, it only causes him to be more violent which results in his murders of his beloved cats and wife.
A person’s psychological struggle and guilt may lead to a mental breakdown. This situation is illustrated in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The story is about an insane man who kills an old man for having a “vulture eye.” The man then tries to prove his sanity by a giving detailed account of the cold, calculated murder that he committed. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe demonstrates internal conflict through the descriptive language he uses to depict the narrator’s inner turmoil and the elaborate plot.
Edgar Allen Poe was one of the most influential and important writers of the nineteenth century. He was the first writer to try to make a living only writing. One of Poe’s most popular short stories, “The Black Cat”, is considered horror fiction or gothic fiction which Poe is known for in his books and short stories because it was a popular genre during his days. In Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”, Poe uses a horror fiction genre, a mentally deranged and evil narrator/character, and symbolism of death to make a thrilling story with tons of suspense, drama, and gruesome detail.
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is an ingenious tale, that contains terrifyingly evocative details. In the “Tell-Tale Heart” there comes a man that committed an iniquitous crime, who constantly assures the readers that he is sane simultaneously, while proceeding to perpetrate homicide. Edgar Allan Poe applies supernatural that contains a reasonable explanation, dramatic irony, and the dangers that dwell inside a human, to reinforce the horror of the story and to uncover that humans cannot endure guilt and must eventually confess.
Edgar Allen Poe was known for his dark-romanticism writings which evoked horror in readers. Seen specifically in his short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, readers are able to get into the mind of the mentally ill narrator who murders an elderly man, one whom he claimed to love. Poe created conflict in this story by having the narrator admit to loving the man and having him be his caretaker. Conflict, and the story line, is created because it makes readers question why he would commit such a heinous crime as killing and dismembering the man. Readers eventually find out that it is the elderly man’s eye that pushes the narrator to do what he does. The narrator is trying to justify his actions and prove his sanity by explaining how he observes
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.
The Tell- Tale Heart and The Black Cat are two horrendous accounts of murder. These two works put readers inside the mind of a madman. Although the narrators are shockingly similar, a few distinct details
When looking at a piece of literature through a psychological approach it is easy to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and superego, which focus on conscious and unconscious behavior. When analyzing many of Poe’s works, critics tend to look through a psychological lens. Specifically in Poe’s The Black Cat. Some critics believe that Poe’s alcoholism is reflected in the piece, but many, such as James W. Gargano “advised the tales readers to avoid the biographical pitfall of seeing Poe and the first-person narrator of The Black Cat as ‘identical literary twins’” (Piacentino 1). It is due to his childhood that Poe’s narrator in The Black Cat subconsciously places animals before humans, thus leading to him to murder his wife.
The psychology or mental state of the narrator of Edger Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat” is a broad area to analyze. The human mind is one of the most articulate system that is made in this world. It’s difficult to understand everybody’s actions and doings because everyone possesses their own unique patterns of thinking. Today, the world of psychology is hard at work to try to figure out the best answers to the questions we have about the mid. Even before the subject of psychology was produced, some writers loosely described the psychology and everything that goes into it. Edger Allan Poe was one of them who portrayed his characters in way that the reader could look further in to their actions and their behaviors to understand the mind better. Poe seemed to have an understanding and fascination for the human, and “The Black Cat” is one of them. The protagonist of the story and his psychology has brought into light in this short story. In this work, Edgar Allan Poe presents the main character, the protagonist, who becomes victim to many complex mind issues such as guilt, perversity, superstitions, revenge, and reverse psychology.