Comparing Poe's A Tell-Tale Heart And A & P

To fail at something means to not succeed at your goal. Oftentimes, our goals are clear in our minds, but we don’t always foresee outside circumstances that may prevent us from reaching our goal. In the stories A Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe and A&P by John Updike, we are shown that it is not always easy to achieve your end goal because things may not play out the way you want. A Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe is a short story about 2 men, one young one old, who live in a house together. The story is told by the young man though his point of view. He begins to tell us how he is mentally ill, but that he isn’t as mad as others say he is. He tries to convince us that he is sane, but by doing that he only furthers our doubts of his claims. He then goes on to tell us how the older man he lives with has an eye that looks at him in a way he does not like, and that it is almost like the eye of a vulture. He reveals his plans to kill the old man so that he may close the eye forever. He tells us about how he slips into the old mans room every night and watched him as he slept. On the seventh night, as he is in the man’s room, the man wakes up and his eye is revealed.
The young man is angered by the eye, and attacks the old man, smothering him to death with the covers. The man screams as he tried to fight off the young man. The neighbors alert the police, and soon after the young man cuts up the body and hides it body under floor, the police arrive. They ask to inspect the house and the young man agrees. He mocks them by helping them search for the body. They all end up in the old mans bedroom, and they begin talking. The young man begins to get paranoid as he claims to hear the beating of the old mans heart from under the floor. As time goes on, his insanity and paranoia gets the best of him and he gives in. He tells the officers of the old man’s death and he is arrested. The story A&P by John Updike is a short story about three girls who walk into an A&P super market wearing bathing suits. The main character, Sammy, is attracted to prettiest of the group who he names Queenie. As Queenie and her friends are on line to checkout, the store manager ridicules Queenie and her friends about their outfits. Sammy is outraged by the managers rudeness and opinion. As the girls leave the store, Sammy stands in their defense and quits his job, even after the manager tells him he will deeply regret it. Sammy leaves the store and runs into the parking lot. He quickly realizes the girls are gone and his heroism is all for nothing. Sammy is left there with regret and a sense of failure. What is failure? Failure, by definition, is lack of success (dictionary.com). When one fails at something, they can still achieve something they wanted, but still fail in the overall ending. Failure essentially means things don’t go as planned. You can achieve smaller goals along the way to your main goal, but if your main goal doesn’t happen, then it is still a failure. The stories A&P and A Tell Tale Heart show 2 different types of failure with their main characters. In A Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, the young man tells us of his hatred and despise for the old mans eye.
For days, he plots on the old man. He wants to get rid of the old man and shut the eye forever. He goes through with his plot to kill the old man and as he cuts up the body and buries the body under the floor, he feels triumphant and successful. It is to his surprise that he hears a knock at the door. The police are there to inspect the house and investigate reports of a scream and struggle. Arrogantly, the young man allowed them in. Thinking they wouldn’t find anything, he felt he had gotten away with the murder. However, his mental condition caused him to give himself up. His failure was due to arrogance. So although he succeeded in killing the man, he failed in getting away with
it.