I Can Stand Him No Longer Analysis

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“The feeling of guilt is your conscience calling your attention to the higher road, and your heart wishing you had taken it.” The poem “I Can Stand Him no Longer” by Raphael Dumas and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe are pieces of literature that develop the thematic topic of guilt using literary devices such as metaphors, connotations, similes and etc. Both stories are about a person who commits a deed that he is later guilty of doing. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, a man commits a murder of an old neighbor and tries to hide the crime. However, he later finds himself guilty of doing so and accepts his crime in front of the police. Comparingly, the poem “I Can Stand Him No Longer” is about a man who hates another person. He pretends as …show more content…

Secondly, the poem “I Can Stand Him No Longer” also incorporates and develops the thematic topic of guiltiness all along. In the poem, the man states “A heavy conscience will always make what’s hidden revealed” In this situation, the man means to say that a strong feeling, in this case, guilt, can make what 's hidden revealed to everyone. So, the author uses an Oxymoron which in this case, is “conscience” to convey to the reader that there is a deeper level of truth in this sentence. And that by saying “conscience,” the author does not mean any random feeling but instead, is trying to signal the reader that the man is referring to the specific feeling of guiltiness. This is because a person’s actions are a result of his/her emotions and consequently, the person would do anything, without giving any second thought to what he/she is about to do, and that may lead to the revealing of something hidden such as secrets and etc. This is the reason for the man to openly accept his hatred for the other man that he previously claimed to like because he felt that the guiltiness that came along with hating the other man was too much for him to bear. This feeling of guiltiness has been portrayed in the poem all along. Thus, the poem “I Can Stand Him No Longer” correctly develops the thematic topic of guiltiness

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