The Tell-Tale Heart 'And The Black Cat'

Edgar Allan Poe was an author that, in his time, was unrecognized for his works. He was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. By the time he was three, both of his parents had died. Poe died mysteriously on October 7, 1849. These tragedies may have affected his writing style. Two examples of the short stories he wrote include “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and “The Black Cat”. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is about a man who is vexed by an old man’s eye. He can’t stop thinking about it, so he decides to end this man’s life. In “The Black Cat”, Poe wrote about a man who gets two new cats, and begins to loathe them. When he decides to kill both cats, he kills one successfully, but his house burns down afterward. When he attempts to kill the second cat, he kills his wife instead. Edgar Allan Poe uses writing techniques such as past tense beginning, main character insanity, and murder to create creepy and engaging stories. The first trait used by Poe is past tense beginning. In many of his short stories, he begins the story with someone talking about it as if it has already happened, then goes on to narrate. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe shows this trait in the first paragraph: “It is

Poe usually writes his stories with the main character being mentally insane, usually denying that they are and acting overall crazily. An example from “The Tell-Tale Heart” is: “True!-nervous-very, very, dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I’m mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them.” (Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”) An example from “The Black Cat” is: “Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not-and very surely do I not dream.” (Poe, “The Black Cat”) He might have used this trait because he might’ve been called mad, so he was trying to convey what an actual insane person acts like and he wasn’t like