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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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