Preview

Compare and Contrast Essay the Tell Tale Heart and the Black Cat

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1031 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Compare and Contrast Essay the Tell Tale Heart and the Black Cat
In both the “The Tell Tale Heart”, and”The Black Cat”, the stories end with a death of a person. Some events in the murder are similar and different. In this paragraph, I will talk about the story, “The Tell Tale Heart”. In the beginning of the story, the narrator wants to kill an old man, who lives with him, because of his vulture eye. He decides that he will watch the old man at night and shine a light on his vulture eye. If he sees the eye he will kill the old man. In the first seven days, he does not see the vulture eye. But on the 8th night he makes a slight noise and wakes the old man up. After a little while he charges into the room, which then the old man screams, and the narrator kills the old man by throwing the bed on top of him. He then realizes that the yell may have attracted a neighbor to wake up and contact the authorities. So he cuts the body into pieces in his bath tub, and hides the pieces of the body underneath his living room floor boards. The police come after a little while suspecting foul play but find nothing. When they sit down to talk to the narrator in the living room, the narrator hears a beating of a heart. He suspects its of the old man. And in an insane fit, he confesses the crime to the police. In this paragraph, I will talk about the story, “The Black Cat”. In the beginning of the story it shows how the narrator was a very happy child and that he loved animals very much. He married early and got a cat named ‘Pluto’. After a while he turned into an alcoholic, which made him maltreat his wife, and pets, except he restrained himself of mistreating Pluto his cat. One day he came home intoxicated. He noticed that Pluto was avoiding him. He seized the cat, and in response, Pluto gave him a slight wound with his teeth. Then the narrator cut out one of Pluto’s eyeballs. After that incident Pluto avoided the narrator even more. Then one morning, with tears in his eyes, he put a noose

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    “The Tell-Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allan Poe, is a short story about the murder of an old man told by the unnamed narrator who committed the murder. The narrator gives a very detailed account of the event which gives one a good look at what is going on inside the narrator's head. Throughout the story the story it becomes increasingly evident that the narrator of the story is not in his right mind and, therefore, is an unreliable source.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Tell-Tale Heart begins with the narrator explaining to the reader that he is nervous but not mad. But yet he confesses that he killed an old man, and then he explains that he killed him for one reason. The old man’s pale blue eye. He explains that he wants nothing from the old man; he had never done anything wrong towards the narrator. Whenever the eye of the old man lands on the narrator he gets nervous. So he decided to get rid of the eye. So for a week or so, the narrator would open the door to the old man’s room very gently. After having opened the door wide enough for his head to pop-in, he would put in a lantern that has no lights on. And once his body is full in he would slowly turn the lantern on so that there is a single thin ray of light. He would then look at the maddening eye which was always closed. So it…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Tell Tale Heart” is well-written as Edgar Allen Poe creates suspense throughout the scenes in the story. As he does this in an appealing way to attract the reader's interest. This is well written as it starts off with a good introduction about how the old man is loved by the narrator but he wants him dead because of his vulture eye. Edgar Allen Poe then shows direct and indirect characterization about the narrator as he stalks the old man at night planning how he will kill him. As Edgar Allen Poe is great with showing the narrator's emotions through indirect characterization. The story never goes off topic and is in good order from start to finish on the relationship with the narrator and the old man.…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” are both very similar in writing technique and multiple plot characteristics, but there also some differences as well. One of the main differences between these two short stories is the way the reader finds out the ending of the plot. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator tells that he has committed a crime at the beginning of the story by saying “But tomorrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events.” The reader finds out that the man is writing his confession of a crime that he is sentenced to death for, but the reader does not find out what the crime is, or any details about…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by Edgar Allan Poe, was initially published in 1843. The story is told by the narrator in 1st person to someone of importance but is never actually known whom he is telling the story to. The narrator explains, in extreme detail, how and why he killed the old man. The purpose is clearly stated, in the second paragraph, but the old man, his eye, and the old man’s death actually are symbols. After careful analysis we will discover that the old man is not real, but an image in the narrator’s mind, that the eye symbolizes his guilty conscience.…

    • 1505 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the story “The Tell Tale Heart” the narrator wants to show the reader that he is not insane. As proof, he offers a story. In the story, the initial situation is the narrator’s decision to kill the old man so that the man’s “evil” eye will stop looking at the narrator. Every night for one entire week the narrator goes to the old man’s room, ready to do the dirty deed. But, the sleeping man does not open his eye. Since the man is not the problem, just the eye, the narrator cannot find it in himself to kill the old man if the offending eye is not open. While spying one night the narrator made a noise, by accident, this noise causing the man to wake up – and open his eye. This is not much of a complication, seeing as though the narrator wanted to kill the old man anyway. The police show up and the narrator remaining calm and collected, even giving them a tour of the house. Eventually the guilt takes over and the narrator starts hearing things, thinking that the noises might stop, he tells the cops to look under the floorboards. The police then find the man’s cut up body.…

    • 1324 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    english 101

    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Tell Tale Heart is a short story written in 1843 by Edgar Allen Poe. This story starts with the narrator telling us how he is not mad, merely nervous, but not crazy.In this story he explains that he loves and takes care of this old man. He has nothing against this old man, in fact he cares for him, but he hates the old man’s “vulture-eye”. The narrator hates the eye and decides to kill the old man to be free of it. He devises a plan to be free of the eye, the narrator goes to the old man's room every night at 12am, for seven days. On the eighth night, he went into the bedroom, then quickly drags the old man, off the bed, and then pulls the bed on top of the man. The narrator then waits till he hears the old man’s heart stop. Once this happens the narrator takes his body, chops it up, and hides it underneath the floorboards in the old man’s room.…

    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two short stories that I have chosen by Edgar Allan Poe are The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat. 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. In this paper I will try to compare and contrast these two short stories and hopefully bring something to the readers attention that wasn't there at first.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Guilt in a Heartbeat

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Through the heart beat from the Tell-Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe shows that all bad deeds come with endless guilt. This short story illustrates that the obsession of the narrator, who is an everyday man, drives him to commit murder to an old man that has done no harm nor insult the narrator. This also goes to show that a man’s conscience can be his own enemy. The Tell-Tale Heart explores various ideas that reassure the insanity that drove the narrator to commit unjustified murder, and the narrator provides this information by describing what kind of character he is. Poe also writes in a very effective point of view that allows the audience to understand completely all the narrators transitions, then the audience is able to see how the setting of the story fits perfectly in this story, finally Poe is able to create various symbolisms injected in the story that justify the narrator’s actions.…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Tell-Tale Heart”, is a thrilling short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It is about the narrator's attempt to convince us that he is not crazy, just have keen senses as we realize when he says: “Why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharped my senses” (The Tell- Tale Heart, p.44). He tries to persuade us of his innocence and his sanity telling how he was able to kill an old man, proprietor of the house where he lives, with a good planning and craftiness. The story shows how the eyes of the old man were like the eyes of a vulture, how it disturbed the narrator, and how it made him paranoid.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe; through his masterpiece provides access to the life of a narrator who insists on his sanity even after committing murder. The short story dubbed “The Tell- Tale Heart” provides an insightful view of the life of the unnamed narrator who showcases his abhorrence of an old man’s eyes that he describes as reminiscent of a vulture’s. Edgar Allan Poe uses diverse techniques to make the story a memorable piece. The techniques consequently bring out the various themes that feature in the short story. Therefore, the ultimate purpose of this literary work is to provide a conclusive analysis on “The Tell-Tale Heart”.…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Tell-Tale Heart

    • 1827 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, presents to the reader a psychological depiction of a narrator who describes his crime with detailed accounts. This Gothic short story shows the dim side of individuals. The story is narrated in first-person; as a result, the reader is not able to conclude a great deal of what the narrator is saying is true. Poe utilizes his words prudently throughout the story to expose a review of paranoia, insanity, and mental declination. The story is stripped of additional elements as a method to intensify the narrator’s fixation with certain and unembellished objects like the eye of the old man, the heartbeat, and his assertion to sanity. Even though the narrator constantly affirms that he is not insane, the reader could presume otherwise due to his bizarre way of thinking, actions, and dialogue.…

    • 1827 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is centered on a man (no name is given) who explains how he killed an old man. The story starts off with the man…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the story, the narrator makes a plan to kill the old man. The chances of a plan made by an insane person is much less likely to work than one made by a mentally stable person. Many times During “The Telltale Heart”, the…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Tell Tale Heart Essay

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Task: Edgar Allan Poe’ story "The Tell Tale heart" is a classic from a horror genre. Show clearly how the horror is achieved through the author's stylish and skilful characterisation of the narrator.…

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays