The Tell-Tale Heart Comparative Essay

Killers can seem sane, like everyone. “The Tale Tale Heart” written by Edgar Allan Poe is a story about a man that killed an old man because he had the eye of a vulture. The story of “The Landlady” was written by Roald Dahl about a woman who runs a bed-and-breakfast where Billy ends up staying and she poisons him with cyanide. Throughout their writing, both Edgar Allan Poe and Roald Dahl use narrative voice and literary devices to develop a suspenseful mood.

Edgar Allan Poe uses a first-person unreliable narrator to create a sense of fear and suspense throughout “The Tell-Tale Heart”.The point of view in “The Tell-Tale Heart” helps to create a suspenseful mood by showing the narrator’s thoughts are established. It makes it evident that he is

The narrator is describing the strengths he has gained from his disease. He believes that his senses become stronger to an impossible amount from his disease. “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” (Poe) This displays a direct contradiction in his own thoughts. The narrator tells of hearing everything, to a humanly impossible measure, but then he says he is not mad. Mad meaning insane or crazy. It is impossible to hear everything, although it is not impossible to hear voices with a mental disorder like borderline personality disorder. Billy has just checked in at the bed-and-breakfast and the landlady has taken him up to his room just to show him. She is letting him stay there for a very cheap price and is giving him many nice accommodations like a water bottle to keep him warm in his bed. She is being very kind. “Now, the fact that his landlady appeared to be slightly off her rocker didn’t worry Billy in the least. After all, she was not only harmless — there was no question about that — but she was also quite obviously a kind” (Dahl) This quote infers that the landlady is kind and harmless. This is to be later proven wrong as she poisons him later that night. Billy describes that she seems to be “slightly off her rocker“. She in fact was a lot more than slightly off her