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Similarities Between The Black Cat And The Cask Of Amontillado

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Recommended: The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" have in common

The Doubles that Shape the Characters Identities Crazy. Unstable. Cunning. These are just a few words that describe Edgar Allan Poe's characters in, “The Tell-Tale Heart, '' “The Black Cat, '' and “The Cask of Amontillado." “The Black Cat” is about a gentleman becoming addicted to alcohol, which causes his docile disposition to change to one of more aggression. He hurts those around him that he loves, including his black cat Pluto, whom he murders as an act of mercy. The narrator becomes haunted by this, causing him to make questionable choices, leading to his death. "The Tell-Tale Heart,” is about a butler who hates an old man with a pale blue eye. The butler stalks the old man and eventually kills him; ridding his world of the evil eye …show more content…

The butler is telling his story of when he kills an old man, his master, whom he loves, since he hates his eye. The butler saw it as an evil that needed to be eliminated. So he stalked the old man in his sleep for seven nights and shined a light on his eye, hoping to catch it open and kill the old man to get rid of the eye. On the eighth night, though, the old man heard him, and when the butler shines the light on his eye, he finds it is “open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it”(Poe). Then he killed the old man, and afterward the narrator blankly states, “There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more”(Poe). Whenever the eye was open the narrator felt an insurmountable amount of anger, and with that, the need to get rid of the eye increased. However, when the eye was closed the butler felt calm. These two opposite feelings paint the narrator as insane, since he gets angry over such a small object as an eye. No sane person would get angry over an eye, nonetheless kill due to it. The butler says, “His eye would trouble me no more”(Poe) as if the eye was committing horrible crimes against him, but it was not; it was just existing. And when he gets rid of the eye a feeling of peace and content washes over him, knowing that the evil tainting his world is gone. The butler's shifting personality feeds his insane behavior; results in him making regrettable

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981 Words | 4 Pages

I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” (Poe 23) The readers are now aware of how disturbing the mood is with this insane protagonist. The story takes a very nasty turn when the protagonist talks about the aftermath of the murder: “The night waned, and I worked

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423 Words | 2 Pages

Poe utilizes the symbolism of the “eye” to illustrate that insanity can be criticized from an individual's intellect. The narrator didn't have anything against the old man but he had something against his eye. In paragraph 2,”...and thus rid myself of the eye forever. ”The narrator is trying to prove his sanity but his eye is making him insane.he is explaining his whole murder that he says how can an insane person plan a murder. Also in paragraph 2, it states ,”...

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483 Words | 2 Pages

This quote helps explain the narrator’s intense hatred for the old man’s eye and how he wanted it gone. And lastly, “There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.” (205) Helps illustrate both characters because the old man is now dead and the narrator was crazy enough to kill to get away from the eye.

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1259 Words | 6 Pages

I think it was his eye!” (Poe “Tell-Tale Heart” 2). Through this it is shown how the narrator has a lack of emotion towards the old man, but only the idea that he wants to kill him. The narrator had grown an obsession with the eye, so much so that the eye is mentioned four times in the second paragraph alone. The eye is described as, “a pale blue eye, with a film over it.

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730 Words | 3 Pages

The narrator states that, “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever”(Poe 2). In this sentence the reader begins to understand that the narrator wants to kill the old man over the small feature of his eye. The old man 's vulture eye is the only thing bothering him, and is the only reason he decided to kill him. If the narrator had been insane he would not have taken careful thought to kill the old man. If a person is insane it is a flash decision where they do not have control over their actions and are unaware of what they are doing.

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1415 Words | 6 Pages

The protagonist's actions display a deliberate and calculated approach to murder. The dedication of the unnamed narrator to watch over the old man leads to the conclusion that this calculative element makes the short story more intentional and eerie compared to “The Black Cat.” According to “Edgar Allan Poe’s Aesthetic Theory, the Insanity Debate, and the Ethically Oriented Dynamics of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’” published in Nineteenth-Century Literature by Dan Shen, the unnamed protagonist of “The Tell-Tale Heart” retains Unlike the impulsive and irrational behavior displayed by the protagonist in “The Black Cat,” the protagonist in “The Tell-Tale Heart” demonstrates a blend of calculated planning and psychological disturbance, further highlighting the differences between these two short stories. Additionally, the protagonist takes quick precautions to conceal the body, displaying a strategic mindset aimed at avoiding detection. The quick and efficient execution of the murder, coupled with the careful disposal of the body, highlights the protagonist's methodical nature.

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1506 Words | 7 Pages

The unnamed narrator intentionally acts kind towards him to make the old man put his guard down, juxtaposing against the narrator's real motives. This calculated manipulation contrasts with the protagonist's impulsive actions in "The Black Cat. " Unlike the protagonist of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” who carefully plans and executes his murder, the protagonist of “The Black Cat” succumbs to fits of rage and impulsivity, leading to reckless violence and a sloppy cover-up. Through these contrasting short stories, Poe highlights the goal-oriented mindset of these

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846 Words | 4 Pages

I think it was his eye. His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait until an animal dies, and then fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it.” (Para 3, Poe) The quote above shows that the murderer loved the old man, but he only killed him to get rid of his eye. The murderer is criminally insane because he acts impulsively and has no motive to kill the old

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419 Words | 2 Pages

and observe how healthily” (Poe 303). The narrator shares an event from the past which he tells us about his hatred for this old man’s eye which resembled that of a “vulture, a pale blue eye, with a film over it”(Poe 303). The narrator uses these illustrative images of this pernicious eye to assist in building the plot. He is trying to convince readers that all of this is because of the “Evil eye”(Poe 303).

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898 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart hears the heart of the old man he murdered through his floor, and The Black Cat’s narrator hears the screeches of the other cat in the closet where his wife’s corpse was hidden. Both confess their acts to the police, and display a striking amount of vulnerability and helplessness as compared to the beginning of their stories. Even before they confess their acts after their immense amount of guilt overpowers them, they both express a surprising amount of arrogance to the police. The narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart welcomes the cops right after killing the old man and hiding him under the floorboards, remarking that “I smiled, —for what had I to fear?” and invited them to “search well”. Meanwhile in The Black Cat, when the police visit his house, the narrator recalls that he “felt no embarrassment whatsoever” and that his “heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence”.

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768 Words | 4 Pages

Meaning that after the murderer had shne out the light from the lantern and onto the old man 's eye, it was quiet in the house yet the could hear the old man’s heart beating in his ears. Revealing how insane the was. In another line that Poe wrote,” And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch on his door and opened it--- oh so gently!” This quote from the story simply explains on how someone is intruding your personal

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1334 Words | 6 Pages

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe is an enthralling and terrifying tale of an insane and paranoid Narrator suffocating his own roommate in his sleep. Throughout the story, fear and dread is a common theme. At every twist and turn Poe creates a sense of uneasiness. Using this, Edgar Allen creates fear and dread through the Characters, Conflict, and Suspense, making the “The Tell-Tale Heart” a scary, and captivating story. Edgar Allen Poe creates fear and dread in “The Tell-Tale Heart” through his characters, more specifically the Narrator.

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433 Words | 2 Pages

Every Time he saw that eye his body would fill up with anger to the point where he just wanted to slaughter the man. He kills the old man and cuts his limbs off and shoves it under the floorboard. The eye is a symbol in this story because without the eye the mood would not be so sinister. Furthermore, Poe uses revealing actions to show the reader how the mood is evoked in the story by slowly, but steadily revealing actions that the reader knows is coming. The author reveals action by hinting to the reader that the madman is going to kill him.

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940 Words | 4 Pages

He was all right at first, but then his guilt flooded back when he heard a heartbeat, yet he never realized that it was only him hearing it. Also, Poe symbolizes the old man’s eye as the narrator’s flaws and traits. In the story, the text states, “He had the eye of a vulture … for

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1164 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator 's sole reason for such murder is purely in his disturbed mind, as he develops an obsession with the old man 's eye and the plot unfolds from here where his insanity augments with the events of the story. Due to Poe’s illustrative language, various evidence can be presented to confirm the state of mind of the narrator, including, his obsession with the old man’s eye, his precision in committing the impeccable crime and finally the sound of the man’s beating heart solely inside his head. Perhaps it all started with the narrator’s obsession with the man’s “vulture eye” since he believes the eye of being evil, proving the insanity he is gravely trying to deny “I think it was

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