Comparing Madness In The Tell-Tale Heart And The Black Cat

Comparing Madness
Edgar Allen Poe’s stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” are two different tales of the protagnists descending into madness. “The Tell-Tale Heart” follows a man who insists he is not crazy to the end yet confesses to the murder of an old man. He had stalked an old man simply because of his pale blue eyes. “The Black Cat” follows an alcoholic on death row who insists he’s not mad despite of his story might and does convey. He does not start out a crazed murderer but is in fact is a happily married, animal-loving man. Although both “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” have the underlying theme of the descent into madness, “The Black Cat”’s protaganist’s mental state was more twisted than that of “The Tell-Tale

“If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. ” (Poe) The narrator prides himself on his intelligence and the calculated nature of his crime, because apparently madman would not have acted as brilliantly as he had done. While trying so determinedly to assert his sanity, he has only succeeded in revealing that he is truly mad. The narrator in “The Black Cat” also clings to claims of sanity even while his situation is directly contradicting it, him telling his depraved story in a cell the day before he is to die. “For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect I, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul. “ (Poe) The narrator has no delusions that his story will be

There is only a few sentences talking about him before his obsession took him over but he was a different person. “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this!” (Poe) This makes it clear that the narrator must have known the old man for quite some time as they lived near each other and he admits he loved the old man, showing how hsi obsession with the old man changed him. “The Black Cat” narrator had the most drastic change as he went from an animal-loving peaceful man to an abusive, alcoholic insane mess. “From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.” The narrator had changed from a quiet, kind child to a madman prone to fits of