Gothic Literature In 'Tell Tale Heart And The Black Cat'

Edgar Allan Poe used gothic literature to show the human condition. In both stories the plot ends with a murder and they both are involving a crazy person who has lost there mind. furthermore, they both could not handle the guilt that is included with a murder case. Of the two short stories, “Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” written by Edgar Allan Poe, they both use Romantic characteristics including obsession, Acts of Violence, and guilt to show people have capability of being evil. Guilt is used in the short story to represent humanity. In humanity people naturally have that guilt feeling after they commit a feeling of crime or wrongdoing. They are accompanied by feelings of shame and regret. For Example, In “Tell Tale Heart” he stated “I love the old man”. The only characteristic about the man that he hated was his eyeball and when his glaring stare was looking at him. In the story he also said “He had the eye of a vulture! A pale blue eye with film over it”. The man felt that his eye was an “evil eye.” Every single night at midnight the eye was always closed though. In “The Black Cat” there was also a lot of guilt on the main

Guilt was shown in the story to represent how humanity works and how it's natural to get that guilty feeling after a wrongdoing. Obsession can also be the cause of many problems. For example, if that man from “Tell Tale Heart” was never obsessed with the eyeball, then he would have never killed the man. That goes for the man with his cat too in “The Black Cat.” Lastly, there was tons of acts of violence in the story that caused many conflicts throughout these stories. Edgar Allan Poe used gothic literature, Romantic characteristics, and dark writing as a form of his mentally deranged ways of