Comparing The Tell-Tale Heart And The Black Cat

Both exposed by victims thought to be dead, two men from two stories share similarities between their situations. In the stories The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat, both narrators realize their acts were wrong, but they did them anyway by rationalizing that they were driven by circumstance. The Tell-Tale Heart is about a man who is disturbed by an old man’s “Vulture eye.” He thinks the only way to rid of this horrid eye is to kill the man. So for seven days, he watches him, and on the eighth he kills him. The man gives in to the police after being disturbed by his very own heart, which was thought to be the dead man’s. Similarly, The Black Cat is about a man who lived with his wife and many pets. Eventually, his hatred towards his favorite pet cat grew. He first cut its eye out, then hung it. One night a new cat comes along and the previous incident reoccurs, despite the man not wanting it to happen. The man ends up killing his wife instead of the cat and promptly buries her in the basement wall. The cat, who jumped into the wall, starts to howl when the police arrive and gives the man away. The theme in both stories is that of good versus evil. Evil lurks in the hearts of all, and sometimes people act upon it. The author develops this theme by using first person narration and symbolism.

The narrator first tries to convince the reader he isn’t crazy. Opposing to that statement, he says, “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” The man planned to warm up to him in case the plan to enter the house was unsuccessful. While that might start out as disturbing, he then says, “I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye could have detected anything wrong.” In the story, the man dismember the old man’s head, arms, and legs just to rid of an eye that vexed