The Tell-Tale Heart Compare Contrast Essay

“The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” are two short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe that parallel his actual feelings and flaws in life. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” the protagonist is under the influence of alcohol dependency, which symbolizes his drinking problem in his life, and the protagonist is caught committing murder, symbolizing death in his life. The protagonist mentioned those flaws and sorrows because he wants readers to understand why he wrote those stories. Therefore, Edgar Allan Poe’s protagonists in his stories share his flaws. His habitual intoxication led to his dark writing with murder’s consequences; thus reflecting the inner working of Poe’s murderous mind. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat”, there are similarities with alcohol dependency. Alcohol dependency was a trait that Edgar Allan Poe had also suffered. Poe himself would drink himself into a stupor to escape his problems, but he would just have more problems. The nameless protagonists in both of Poe’s stories admit that they suffer from alcoholism. The protagonist’s views of their alcoholism are different, but we will get to that later. Just like Poe, the protagonists in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” would also drink to the point to where they become insane in one way or another, killing someone,

Murder symbolizes death in Edgar Allan Poe’s life. In Poe’s life, many people, especially his loved ones have died early. Since Poe knows many people who died, he uses the theme of murder to write his stories, because this is a theme he can easily relate to with death, since someone dies in a result of murder. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” the protagonists get caught for committing murder. The protagonists in the two stories kill their victim without a real good reason. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the protagonist kills the old