The stories “The Black Cat” and “Hop-Frog” by Edgar Allan Poe are similar based on the presence of twisted love and the lack of guilt.…
Within these three stories The Black Cat, The feather pillow, and Sharp objects, they all have similar literary elements: it’s dark and cryptic. They all have deep meanings and gothic elements. They are very different than the usual happy endings bullcrap, and they are more of the tragedy and very morbid type.…
The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. Although Poe wrote this short story before the invention of modern psychological science, Roderick's condition can be described according to its terminology. They include a form of sensory overload known as hyperesthesia (hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smells, and tastes), hypochondria (an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness), and acute anxiety. It is revealed that Roderick's twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. The narrator is impressed with Roderick's paintings, and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it.…
The problems of alcoholism and insanity are recurring themes in Poe’s literary works. One can say that “The Black Cat,” one of Poe’s short stories, portrays much of the author’s own views on his substance abuse problems and mental illness. The unnamed narrator from “The Black Cat,” struggles with his addiction to alcohol and his hatred for two cats become prevailing. The narrator states, however, that he was never like this before he loved animals, “never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.” (Poe, 3). The narrator takes on a cat and cares for it, however, as his drinking problem progressed, he states, “I grew day by day more moody… my disease grew upon me.” (Poe, 4). After a night out drinking, he decides to cut out one of the cat’s eyes and ultimately, kills the cat. Later, another cat strangely identical to the first cat with one eye comes around and as the narrator tries to kill the second cat he ends up killing his wife instead. He buries the body of his wife and the second cat behind a wall and police later hear the cat calling out from inside the wall. In relation to Poe’s life, Poe was known to love cats and had a female cat named Catterina (Mercier). The killing of the first cat relates to Poe’s own destruction of the things he loved and desired due to alcoholism. He lost his job in 1837 due to his drinking and feuding with other editors (Edgar Allan Poe, Encyclo.) The killing of an innocent wife can closely relate to Poe’s views of women in his own life, through the deaths of both his mother figures and then eventually his wife. Poe writes about women who carry a unique beauty to them. The women are compassionate to the men they…
Edgar Allan Poe's view on poetry is that all poems must be a creation of beauty. In his eyes, depression and sadness is beautiful. He thinks that the death of a young beautiful woman is itself full of beauty. Poe’s way of beauty is a one of a kind compared to other poets and writers. In both "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven", Poe writes about this so-called beauty.…
Edgar Allen Poe’s use of the first person narrative in The Tell-tale Heart is much more effective than Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of the third person in Young Goodman Brown because the use of the first person in Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart allows the reader to feel the narrator’s panic while the third person narrator in Young Goodman Brown only tells the story and the reader does not feel the main character’s feelings. By telling the story of the Tell Tale Heart in the first person, Poe allows his readers to see the build up of the main characters insanity with the use of language and crazy and rambling dialogue. On the other hand, Hawthorne’s use of the third person simply narrates the story and tells of Brown’s feelings rather than having the reader identify with Brown.…
Comparisons can be made between everyone in the world, whether it be a man, woman, child, or animal. In this sense, one can compare authors, such as their lives, their styles of writing, and their pieces of literature. There are many similarities and differences between Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. These similarities and differences include what they focus on in their writings, how they write, and what they believe in. The lives and beliefs of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King can be shown in the pieces they wrote.…
Many of Poe’s stories have several similarities, for example, “The Masque of the Red Death”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, and “The Premature Burial” all have a dark setting, death, fear and symbolism in them. Edgar Allan Poe writes these stories based off of his own life and fears. His biggest fear is being buried alive, which most stories include. Some of his stories tell about his wife, Virginia, who died and causes many issues in Poe’s life and career.…
In modern day life today people adjust in different situations they are put in. Their mood or personality sometimes changes due to the situation they were in. In literature today and from the past people change throughout the story. Man can change from good to bad or vice versa. Past american writers used dark romantics characteristics in there story, authors such as Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. In Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Cask of Amontillado” is about two business associates that have been acquaintances for many years now. Montressor became greedy and decided to poison and bury alive his old friend fortunato after fortunato insulted him badly for too long. Montresor had enough and took action in the wrong way. In another one…
Edgar Allen Poe has a better way of describing his emotions on to paper, his tone is dark and depressing yet gives into a little anger here and there. Charles Dickens has also dark and emotional stories growing up poor he must have a few little glimpses of pain but he became wealthy in time. Poe was born wealthy and became poor as he grew older, and if that was not enough sadness, every loved one he had died most of tuberculosis so he drank and wrote stories to cope with the pain of being alone and loveless.…
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe are two of the biggest poets in American Literature from the 1800s. They had many things in common from their writings about death and sadness, because of their unfortunate losses in life, to the fact that they were both born in Massachusetts. They were also different in many ways. They were different in the way they looked at life and wrote about their experiences from it. While it is obvious they had many differences, they also had many things in common from their lives to their styles of writing making them amazing writers.…
When comparing Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” it seems that there are plenty of obvious similarities that are on the surface and there are subtle differences that one can find when they truly look deep into the meanings of things. In both poems the speaker is putting all meaning into what they are seeing. The speaker in “The Road Not Taken” is viewing what is in front of him, ready to make an important decision in his life. He is viewing the roads as a paramount decision to make in his life. In “The Raven” the speaker is watching the raven that has enters his room, giving it major importance in what he is going through. In both poems the objects that lay in front of the speakers are devices, they are metaphors given the utmost importance. Both speakers are haunted by what has happened in their life and what could happen based on the decisions that lie in front of them.…
Poe's story "The Premature Burial" reflect the terror that the characters suffer from and lead them to be isolated from the society.The use of the single effect in Poe's short stories supports the structure and the actions in the story.The use of the words " premature, horror, interments, buried while alive, entombment" and others support the overall atmosphere, which is full of fear and terror from being not dead yet but buried. According to John Kitterman "The Premature Burial" is a story that "presents the experience of being buried alive from the first-person point of view",The unnamed narrator suffers from the horror of being buried alive. As he says "To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which…
There are many behavioral characteristics widely shown throughout Poe’s stories that show the similarities between the criminals. In his short stories “A Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” the criminals are both cold blooded killers. The narrator of “The Black Cat” murders his beloved cat and wife…
Both of these stories were written in a gothic style, both representing a murder scene and domestic violence. One similarity that both stories share is that the main characters don’t seem to be able to accept death or any psychological trauma in a proper manner. A symbolism that appears in the story is the name and color of the cat. Black is said to be the color of death, and Pluto was the name of a God of the underworld. It is true that the cat’s owner (whom remains un-named) takes the black cat’s eye at first. Then the next morning he regretted what he had done to the cat. “When reason returned with the morning […] I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse […] I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.” It was clear that the character regretted what he had done, and his guilt was so profound that alcohol seemed like a good option to relieve…