Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Black Cat” are all surprisingly similar as well as very distinctive in their respective stories, as Poe tended to use comparable themes in his works. Across Poe’s publications, he usually included criteria for a “perfect revenge story.” This perfect revenge involves a form of punishment, a reason why the punishment was given, as well as the action of getting away with it. These three short stories contain at least one of these aspects, as well as differences in their texts. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe includes a form of punishment, as the central character killed an old man whom he stalked for an entire week while he slept. As for the reason why, the insanity manifesting deep inside the main character caused him to antagonize the elderly man’s strange eye, and resulted in him acting irrationally. As for the final part of the “perfect revenge,” the character did not get away with the crime, as the police arrested him since he spilled his secret. He could not bear the guilt that came with murdering and disposing of the man under the floorboards, and was constantly hearing a heartbeat. This imaginary beat …show more content…
The central character in this story narrated from his jail cell, a day prior to his execution. Obviously, this depicted that he did not get away with his “revenge,” and is paying the price with his life. In this story, he ended up slaughtering his wife, and obscured her remains in the wall of the house’s cellar. Originally, his plan was to massacre the majestic cat that was constantly bringing him guilt from his past experience with the black cat, but instead decided to kill the love of his life. He too could not mask the secret he beheld, and was not successful in getting away with