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Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And The Black Cat

1031 Words5 Pages

Edgar Allen Poe truly deserves the title of the master of psychological horror, based on the unpredictability of the main character and the gruesome moments displayed in "The Black Cat” (Poe 1843/2021). In contrast, the stories "The Hypnotist" (Bierce 1893/2003), and "The Yellow Wallpaper" (Gilman 1892/2021) contain terrifying elements but lack the strength to instill great psychological terror into the reader. In “The Black Cat” (Poe 1843/2021), the narrator's emotions are unpredictable and change from start to end. Initially, Poe (1843/2021) describes the narrator as docile and has a tender heart. He discussed his fondness for animals, especially his black cat Pluto, who was his favorite. However, as time went on, his mood began to change and contradicted how he used to …show more content…

As the story progresses, the narrator commits atrocious crimes, such as gruesomely murdering his cat and killing his wife for no apparent reason, which comes as a shock to the reader. The unpredictable and drastic character change comes as a shock to the reader. The narrator dives into a world of terrifying madness that evokes great fear and psychological terror. In “The Hypnotist” (Bierce 1893/2003) the narrator’s emotions are predictable and stay the same throughout the story. Bierce (1893/2003) paints the narrator as scientific and straightforward. After the narrator figures out that he has the power of hypnotism, he uses it for his gain, but also experiments with it to see how far his power will go. Although he murders a girl, the prison warden, and his parents, it has little effect on the reader because from the start he is established as a murderer. He is very calm about his actions and even goes so far as to justify them and state how he is trying to determine the full extent of his power. The narrator’s actions do not contradict each other, causing his character to be predictable, thus taking away from the shock

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677 Words | 3 Pages

The hypnotherapy changes Peter’s personality and makes him very laid back and blunt. Two consultants come in to the office looking to dramatically downsize, but when they meet Peter they are very impressed with his honest opinions of the company. They offer to put him on the management fast track; Peter was all for this idea until he found out about

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601 Words | 3 Pages

The initial shocker within this story was revealing the fact that Emily was being sexually abused and mentally mistreated for the entirety of her life by her father. This caused her to believe it was morally correct to perform the same acts as he did. These bizarre stories both encapsulate various aspects of secrecy. In Poe’s story, the main frightening scenario that held a mysterious secret was the mystifying fact that the only wall still standing after the narrator’s house burned down was the wall with the painting of Pluto, the black cat. The mysterious secret was the fact that the narrator had hanged Pluto as well as violently cutting his eye out.

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1467 Words | 6 Pages

In the Literary Eras of Romanticism and Realism, the theme of hysteria is written about in multitude, which is apparent in the two short stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Kate Chopin and “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe. These two short stories highlight the unnamed narrator's descent into insanity. The man and the woman emphasize madness during this period in different ways. Kate Chopin’s goal in her writing about women was to stress the stigma and lack of knowledge during this time of women’s health. This is why the narrators reason for going insane is different as the man abuses alcohol, avoiding a real problem.

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532 Words | 3 Pages

Suspense in “The Black Cat” Why do people choose to go into haunted houses? It is because they want to know what happens inside. Haunted houses maintain this mystery and intrigue in order to create an element of suspense. Edgar Allan Poe uses this same element in “The Black Cat” to keep the reader interested. Poe develops suspense through three events: the hanging of his black cat, Pluto; the finding of the second black cat; and the killing of his wife, Virginia.

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774 Words | 4 Pages

In the excerpts from The Black Cat and Pet Sematary, Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King fabricate their tales of horror by using the audience’s morbid curiosity and subconscious fears in their advantage to induce a sense of fear and suspense. The writers emphasize the importance of using figurative language and other literary devices to captivate the moment in the story and to keep the audience intrigued. Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King’s horror stories are deemed as relevant pieces of literary works, since many people consider that the horror genre is faltering in literature and other media, particularly in films. The authors demonstrate that through the creative use of syntax, sensory language, imagery, frightened tones, and even some allusions; they can adequately build suspense and tension. Use rapidly changing emotions to build suspense.

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334 Words | 2 Pages

The narrator of the Tell-Tale Heart is viewed as many things: clever, mad, cruel, but is he sane or insane? The psyche of this killer is a mystery to many, with many debates as to if he is not guilty by way of insanity, responsible for his crimes, just a small bit delirious, or absolutely raving insane. He admitted to killing an old man, and denies madness at every whim. “ …but why will you say I am mad?...how, then, am I mad?...”

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1199 Words | 5 Pages

The most important way Poe creates an atmosphere of mystery and suspense in “The Black Cat” is through a supernatural occurrence, which is the driving force of the narrator's madness. The story begins with the narrator, a day away from meeting his death at the gallows, explaining the events that lead to him becoming insane. The narrator speaks both of his love of animals, especially his black cat Pluto, and his struggles with alcoholism. Eventually, his overuse of alcohol leads to outbursts of anger, one in particular that leads him to act violently toward Pluto and cut out one of his eyes. Signs of madness shine through when the narrator explains to the reader that he then proceeded to hang Pluto because wanted to commit “a vile or a silly action for no other reason” than because he knew he should not (Poe).

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555 Words | 3 Pages

By considering the audience hypnotized by this event, he evokes powerful emotion from both the idea that humanity does not always act on what

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694 Words | 3 Pages

He kills him, but the police stop by because one of his neighbors heard a scream. The narrator remains calm through questioning, but ends up admitting to his crime at the end. His thoughts, speech, and actions end up proving that the narrator was insane throughout the story. The narrator can be proven insane by looking into his thoughts. In the beginning (Paragraph 1) of the story he says, “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.

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558 Words | 3 Pages

In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, one of the themes is insanity. Insanity is portrayed from the opening statement of the narrator, his actions, and in his final fall into insanity during his confession. The opening statement of the narrator fails at expressing his sanity to the reader. The opening statement of the narrator says, “TRUE! --nervous

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595 Words | 3 Pages

The young man has been engaging in this practice for a few years by this time and remarks on the lack of experimentation of the effects of hypnosis on deathbed patients. His query focuses on three discoveries: whether such a person would be susceptible to magnetic influence, whether their illness had any effect on the connection, and most importantly, if death could be arrested by the process. The man immediately recalls a friend of his named M. Valdemar who had fallen ill sometime before and was not given much time to live. Arrangements are made, and the narrator is to be called into M. Valdemar’s chambers nearing the prescribed time of death.

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514 Words | 3 Pages

The Black Cat is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. The story is about a man who murders a cat that he thinks is suspicious and then later murders his wife. The mood of the story is full of eerie and spooky events that help the narrator to keep the reader reading. The setting in the beginning of the story is the narrator telling the true events of what really happened to the black cat him and his wife once had and what really happened to his wife. On page one of the story the narrator says, “My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly and without comments a series of mere household events”.

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647 Words | 3 Pages

In the gruesome short story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe a nameless narrator tells his story of his drunken and moody life before he gets hung the next day. The intoxicated narrator kills his favorite cat, Pluto and his wife with an axe. Soon enough, the narrator gets caught and there he ends up, in jail. Although, most readers of “The Black Cat” have argued the narrators insanity, more evidence have shown that he is just a moody alcoholic with a lousy temper.

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1395 Words | 6 Pages

In Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of criminal insanity, the first-person narrators confess unsound confessions. They control the narrative, which only allows us to see through their eyes. However, they do describe their own pathological or psychological actions so conscientiously that they exhibit their own insanity. They are usually incapable of stepping back from their narratives to detect their own madness. The narrator 's’ fluency is meticulous and often opulent.

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496 Words | 2 Pages

Ultimately it comes down to this, insane or sane? Insane would be the perfect way of describing a person being mad, killing a man for no reason, and laughing at a horrifying death. After having the narrator showing so many things to prove he is insane rather than sane is pretty clear. The author allows a visual understanding of the narrator in the “Tell Tale Heart” from having many specific details about his point of view.

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