The Black Cat And The Tell Tale Heart Comparison Essay

501 Words3 Pages

These two stories in particular have many things in common as far as technique goes, but they do have some significant differences between the two. While the short stories “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” have their similarities including murders that have somewhat a correlation to their eye, the short stories also have major differences. Compare. Both “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” have narrators that murder a character that has some correlation to their eye, and would later on in the stories bury them in a part of their house. Both of the narrators are caught by the police one way or another because of the narrators over confidence. Both of the narrators have supernatural and/or hallucinations that occur to them. In …show more content…

Differences between the two short stories are in the narrator's intent in the murders in “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator planned his murder for a long time, stealthily waiting for the right moment, whereas the narrator in “The Black Cat” killed his moment with no forethought, but in a moment of blind rage. The narrators were found out in different ways too, "The Tell-Tale Heart" the narrator confessed openly, when he was afraid of being found out, but in "The Black Cat," the police found out not through a confession, but through discovering the body themselves. The narrator in “The Black Cat” was an alcoholic, which led to his temper and problems, but the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” was not, he just claimed to have a "heightened sense of hearing" from a so called "disease." Granted, that disease could have been alcoholism, but it isn't specified. The supernatural thing that drives these narrators crazy in the stories are different. In “The Black Car” it's a cat, and in “The Tell-Tale Heart” it's the thumping heartbeat. Furthermore, the purpose in telling their tales also differs. In “The Black Cat” the narrator says it is just his way of releasing his soul before he dies. For "The Tell-Tale Heart" the narrator tells his story in a desperate attempt to prove that he isn't