Compare And Contrast The Black Cat And The Tell Tale Heart

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These two short were written by Edgar Allan Poe who was an American poet and writer who is regarded as a master of macabre, focusing on the horror genre with themes of death and insanity being explored throughout his work. Many traits of his main characters, such as the alcohol abuse of the protagonist in The Black Cat are borrowed from his own experiences, with the demons of drugs and alcohol eventually driving Poe to his death. The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart have many things in common, but they do have some significant differences too. I will try to compare these two short stories and hopefully bring something interesting to the reader attention. In the story The Tell-Tale Heart the narrator is writing the story because he is trying to convince the reader that he is not mad. At the beginning it seems believable until he starts to describe his obsession with the old man’s vulture eye. At this point the reader realize that this person is gradually growing insane. His effort to stop a human life just because of physical imperfection was thought of insanity. Who with right mind would even been thinking about such thing and even the narrator himself said, “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my head…”. The whole time the narrator was conscious of what he is wad planning to do. He was watching the old man with vulture eye for 7 nights, it was enough time for thinking about his intention. On the other hand, the narrator of The Black Cat is trying to unburden