Comparing Tell-Tale Heart And Washington Irving's Rip Van

Dark romanticism literature became even darker with the birth of Gothic literature. Gothic literature centered around topics of conflict and corruption; and often invoke emotions of fear, horror, and anxiety in its readers. It tends to have a negative outlook and creates a disharmony with mankind and nature. Two well-known authors of Gothic literature are Edgar Allen Poe and Washington Irving. Poe and Irving share the theme of a Man’s soul/Individual self in their works, but their style of their writing differs; a comparison of Poe’s “The Tell- Tale Heart” and Irving’s “Rip van Winkle” provide good examples of these similarities and differences.

As a Gothic author, Edgar Allen Poe wrote many works and it was commonly seen as very dark literature;
Poe used the horrific act to shock his readers and invoke fear. By committing this gruesome act, the narrator calls into question his morality and mental state. The detailed description of the crime from the narrator’s point of view allows the reader to experience their emotions. For example, the narrator’s anxiety and panic can be felt when he talks about the beating heart at the end of “The Tell-Tale Heart;” “I felt that I must scream or die! -and now-again! hark! louder! louder! louder! louder! – “(Norton 694). Another way Poe brings the narrator’s mental state into question, as well as draw attention to detail, is through alliteration. The narrator seems to have an obsession with time and routine; for example, “for seven long night-every night just after midnight” and the recurring sound of “a low, dull, quick sound-much such a sound as they watch makes when envelope and cotton” (Norton 692-693). The repeated behaviors and thoughts control and contained in the narrator’s mind. I find it interesting that the murder, concealment, and confession are all confined to one room too. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” perhaps Poe intended for the narrator to represent the dangers of one’s own mind. Fear, anxiety, madness, guilt, etc. are all contained in one’s mind, therefore it