Comparing The Cask Of Amontillado And The Tell-Tale Heart

In “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” similar techniques are used to create a sense of tension and menace. The Tell-tale heart uses descriptive narration and a unique persona of the narrator, as well as the night time setting which contributes to the sense of menace. The Cask of Amontillado takes a slightly different path towards demonstrating tension menace, again the brilliant uses of descriptive and imagery words to describe the setting and set the tone of tension and menace.

Poe uses a common gothic narrative style such a first person narration and the setting of both stories to create tension and menace. In the Tell-tale Heart, Poe produces a narrator with an “psychopathic mind”. In the beginning of the story the narrator
Menace and tension are created by using short, sharp sentences such as “I heard many things in hell.”. His motivation to murder was the distress of the old man’s” pale blue eye”. Every night, he went to the old man’s bedroom and secretly observed the man sleeping, here he creates tension by the language he uses, he explains how slow he is going, how cautious, this is emphasised by the quote “And then when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously – oh, so cautiously – cautiously” an over exaggeration, but he uses the slow movements and setting to show the concentration and precision of his actions. Similarly, in The Cask of Amontillado Poe wisely chooses words that deliver a strong sense of place to the reader and create more tension. For instance, even though one expects the carnival setting to be joyous and bright, he dampens the tone of the setting by relating to the reader that, “It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season”. Poe defines the atmosphere of the setting as taking place during a time of “supreme madness” and therefore it becomes clear there is something menacing about the setting, that Montressor is brewing something sinister. Poe sets the reader up for the unravelling of the gloomy plot. Both texts show that imagery is vital to set tension and suspense, and create also
The dark setting in the Cask of Amontillado is created through Poe’s use of language to intensify the situation once Fortunato is brought the catacombs. The reader is aware of the dampness and the unpleasant cough of Fortunato. This is emphasised by the narrator’s constant descriptions of the place. For example, he describes the setting as the two walk through the passages, saying, “The nitre! ...It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones”. The reader is transported the chilly setting of the vaults and can feel what Fortunato is sensing. Every detail of the caves is explored through dialogue. With dead bodies around them and the dripping walls, it is a place of death and macabre. In contrast, in the Tell-Tale heart, most of the story takes action at night, which helps to build tension. The narrator is obsessed of stalking the old man while he is sleeping. He relishes his plan; this is certain by this quote: "To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea". This cast a tone of menace over the story. The way that he claims that he isn’t mad, and then describes his awful deed in such setting and detail also contributes to the sense of horror. Although the style of the setting in both stories are different, they