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The Black Cat Comparative Essay

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Kavan Malaviya Mrs. Parcells ELA 6 15 February 2023 Comparative Essay Do Hook. Edgar Allen Poe explores how a guilty conscience cannot be ignored in his short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat.” “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story about a man who is frightened of his acquaintance's eye. This causes him to murder his acquaintance, and eventually confess his murder when he hears the heartbeat of the person he killed. On the other hand, “The Black Cat” is a short story about a man who develops a relationship with his cat. However, due to being intoxicated, he rips its eyes out in rage and hangs it soon after in regret. When a cat looking similar to his old cat (Pluto) appears, the man attempts to kill it, only killing his …show more content…

Poe uses figurative language to show why the narrator wants to kill the old man: “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe, par. 2). Saying that the eye is a vulture eye is a metaphor that suggests the eye is evil. This expresses the effects of the old man’s eye on the narrator and portrays what motivates the narrator to kill him. However, this act of murder in cold blood eventually leads the narrator to his downfall. After killing the old man, the narrator hides him in the floorboards of his house: “I took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly so cunningly, that no human eye -- not even his -- could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out -- no stain of any kind -- no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that” (Poe, par. 15). By hiding the old man up under the floorboards, the narrator is trying to suppress and push back his guilt of killing the old man, essentially trying to ignore it. He also wants to avoid the potential outcome of being caught instead. However, due to a neightbor’s report, the police eventually come to the …show more content…

When the police arrive at the narrator’s house, the narrator acts as if nothing is wrong, ignoring the guilt of killing the old man. His overconfidence in concealing his murder is shown, as he even allows the police to stay with him in the room where he buried the dead old man: “In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim” (Poe, par. 17). The narrator feels as if he cannot possibly be caught, the murder seemed to be covered up

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“ The Tell-Tale Heart” Interpretive Essay Is the complex character created by Edgar Allan Poe a calculated killer or a delusional madman. In the short story “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character has a mental condition which causes him to kill a neighbor. He believes that his neighbor has a “vulture eye” which is the reason why he killed him. Night after night, he watches the man and plans how to kill him. Then one night, he puts his plan into action.

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[Eventually when] the cat followed me [the main character]…, [it] exasperated me [him] to madness. I [he attempted to] aim a blow [with an axe] at the animal… Goaded, by the interference [of his wife], into a rage more than demoniacal, I [he] withdrew my [his] arm from her [his wife’s] grasp and buried the axe in her [narrator’s wife’s] brain (Poe, page 4).” Because the narrator was annoyed and infuriated, he kills his wife, as well, for interfering with his plan to kill the second cat they adopted; thus this shows the main character’s corrupted and malicious mind. The former joyful, generous man sprouts into an evil and a criminal, who murders Pluto, his cat, and his wife.

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“In an instant I dragged over to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to the deed so far done. Page 3”, he smiled, he was happy for killing him, if he does it once, he’ll do it again. This man, Edgar Allan Poe has to be insane, he said, “ I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.

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I admit the deed!--tear up the planks!--here, here!--it is the beating of his hideous heart!” Poe uses suspense by listing the details of the character’s crime, then by describing how the man is feeling when the guilt fully settles upon him and he can’t stand

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as Poe continues to show this hatred. He plans to kill the cat, but instead kills his wife, who stopped his axing blow from slaughtering the animal. In retaliation for killing Pluto and almost killing him again, the cat disrupts the narrator's masterplan by exposing the body of his deceased wife with his meowing

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He had never wronged me” (Poe). Though the narrator claims that he and the old man have no bad blood, and that he loves and cares for him, this is ironic since he goes on to murder him for seemingly no reason. It is clear that the narrator suffers from some sort of illness, citing it himself, and it being responsible when it comes to the old man’s murder; his eye having bothered the narrator so much it drove him to this point. Further into the story, when the police are investigating his home after receiving a notice from a neighbor, the narrator seems confident in their presence, “I smiled, -- for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome” (Poe).

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The man placed the old man's body cleverly under the chamber’s floorboards. A disturbance was issued during the night and investigators came to the man's residence. He convinces the investigators, but. The man began to feel pale,

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There are few depressing events that occur during the course of the tale: for instance, the loss of the narrator’s former self, the abuse his other animals and wife, and his home due to the black cat’s occurring involvement. Despite the losses, however, the narrator surprisingly introduces a new black cat into his new home. The narrator thinks this will get rid of all his former dreadful memories and emotions of Pluto by introducing the new cat into his life, the narrator receives the exact opposite symbolizing the misfortune of the black cat have on the narrator. The text can provide evidence to this by stating “[t]his was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but- I know not how or it – its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted

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This would be the case in this story. In the short story that Poe composed, there is a man who accidently killed his wife, and hid her corpse inside the wall in the cellar of the house.

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There are times in life where people do commit a small mistake, or a huge crime, but what really matters is if one will listen to their conscience. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character lives with an old man who has an eye that “resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” The story revolves around the main character’s obsession over the eye, and how he got rid of it-- by murdering the old man. Towards the end of the story, the young man confesses to the police about his insane stunt after they searched his house. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe focused on having the reader know more than the secondary character, using description, and using a first-person narrator, to build suspense.

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The narrator, after having already murdering the old man, explains why he is not mad for killing the man. In his words, “If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body” (Poe 4). What the narrator later tells us was how he buried the body under floorboards. That emphasizes just how insane he is to believe that he himself really is not insane. The author is trying to get the readers to, in a way, to have fear and be on the edges of their seats because of this narrator.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” is a gothic story about a man’s sanity. The Narrator believes that sanity, and other’s thinking that he is sane, is very important. But his obsession with this idea of sanity, is what makes him stand out for his insanity. Bloom says,“’The Tell-Tale Heart’ is a breathless, frightening monologue of the disintegration of consciousness and conscience under the onslaught of obsession.” Because this story is written in the first person point of view, the reader gets a look inside the Narrator’s mind.

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The imagery that Poe uses creates an irrational tone full of anger. When he first sees the eye his “blood ran cold” and later when the old man moaned he, “knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although” he “chuckled at heart”. After the murder, the subject yells about the old

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To begin, the narrator cannot be trusted through his vague personality. The narrator claims, “And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night” (Poe 626). The narrator mentions this the morning after the seventh night of stalking. In the wee hours of the morning, the narrator ever so cautiously enters the old man’s bedroom.

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Obsession, internal conflict, and underlying guilt are all aspects of being human but when it’s associated with paranoia and insanity it may be just the recipe for the perfect crime as perceived by Edger Allan Poe in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Poe uses this as one of his shortest stories to discuss and provide an insight into the mind of the mentally ill, paranoia and the stages of mental detrition. The story 's action is depicted through the eyes of the unnamed delusional narrator. The other main character in the story is an old man whom the narrator apparently works for and resides in his house. The story opens off with the narrator trying to assure his sanity then proceeding to tell the tale of his crime, this shows a man deranged and hunted with a guilty conscience of his murderous act.

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