Comparison between The Tell – tale heart and The black cat

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Name  : jethwa Monali A

Sub: The  American Literature

Unit : 4 Poe's short stories

Topic :  Comparison between The  Tell – tale  heart and The black cat

Sem : 3  MA part 2

Email Id : monalijethwa19@gmail.com










































 Introduction of the E.A POE :-
















Edgar Allan Poe  born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849 was an American writer, editor, and literary critic.
Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre.


He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story.



Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.


He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.










The Tell- Tale Heart :-
















“The Tell-Tale Heart" was first published in January 1843 in the inaugural issue of The Pioneer, a short-lived Boston magazine edited by James Russell Lowell."

Edgar Allan Poe's story The Tell – Tale Heart presents murderous act done by a boy and confessions done later. Poe describe that our heart really can hide the inner reality.

 Despite desire of secrecy, our heart reveals what there is."The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable narrator. The exactness with which the narrator recounts murdering the old man, as if the stealthy way in which he executed the crime were evidence of his sanity, reveals his monomania and paranoia.

He narrator claims that he is not mad as he could hear things in the heaven, earth and hell. To justify him saint, the confesses dangerous crime he has committed.

The narrator and the old man used to reside together; they had very good relationship. The boy used to love the man very much. The old man also used to treat him well.

The only thing that irritated the boy was the eye of him. To end the consequences, he went to the old man's room continuously for seven days. But returned, as he could not see the eyes of the man. In the morning he spoke politely and behaved as if nothing had happened. On the eighth nights, he as usual went there with torchlight. He did every thing stealthy and cautiously. Despite it, he happened to touch tin fastening, which dropped and disturbed the sleep of the man. In desperation, he asked who it was.
 The boy remained speechless and motionless. A little later his sense brought him the reason that the old man easy asleep again, he aimed the beam towards the old man's eyes. As he saw them, he grew angry.

He then, jumped towards the man, dragged the man and pressed his neck with bed. At last, he dismembered the old man's dead body and put it under the plank. After it, he cleaned the place spotlessly clean. It was already four when he finished the task.

At four, the three policemen appeared and rang the bell. The boy went there; welcome them bought to his room and took to every nook and corner of his house. The policemen didn't suspect any wrong there.

The boy took them to the spot where he had hidden the corpse of the old man. He cordially asked them to sit on the chair, which he had kept there. He sat there just over the plank whereas policeman continued talking with smiling face.

The boy, at the mean time, heard sound coming from beneath. He desired to reduce the loudness of the sound. For this purpose, he spoke louder; though it didn't do any good. He felt the sound growing; he felt the policemen’s smile as the smile of mockery.

It became unbearable for him to keep the reality secret. He thought it better to confess than to hide. Eventually he confessed the crime.





















The Black Cat :-


















The Black Cat" is yet another classic murder tale from Poe. The unreliable first person narrator is writing his account on the eve of his execution for murdering his wife.

The story that unfolds is a classic Poe narrative, combining the account of an unreliable narrator with madness and supernatural events that are essential ingredients of his fiction.

The narrator starts by telling us about his childhood and how humane he was. He was particularly fond of animals and had many.

He married someone with a similar interest, and they had many pets together. However, particular mention is given to the cat they have together, who was the favourite pet of the narrator. However, because of alcohol, the narrator changes his sunny disposition and becomes angrier and more irritable. He ill-uses both his wife and his pets.

One night, returning drunk, he seizes his cat and the cat bites his hand. In a fury, the narrator cuts one eye from the cat's face. The narrator later goes on to hang the cat from a tree and kill it, "because" he knows he is committing a terrible sin.

On that same night, the narrator's house burns to the ground, reducing his circumstances greatly.

However, in the ruined house the narrator finds a picture of a gigantic cat on one of the walls with a rope around its neck. Although he tries to explain this picture away, he is unsettled.

 One night, again drunk, he sees another cat almost identical to his former cat, but with a white patch on his breast. This cat stays with the narrator and his wife, but the narrator comes to regard this cat with fear and dread, associating it with agony and death.


One day, the narrator and his wife go down to the cellar, the cat following. The narrator becomes enraged and tries to kill the cat with an axe, but his wife stops him. Overwhelmed by anger, he turns and kills her. He buries the wife in the cellar, bricking in her corpse.

Finally, the police arrive and, filled with bravado, the narrator shows them the cellar and raps on the exact place where his wife's corpse is buried saying how well the house is built.

He is shocked to hear a voice from the tomb. It is after the police knock the bricks away that we realise the narrator walled up the cat along with his wife's body.




Diffrent between The Tell- Tale heart and The Black cat :

Differences between the two are in the narrator's intent in the murders--in "The Tell-Tale Heart" he planned his murder for a long time, stealthily waiting for the right moment, whereas the narrator in "The Black Cat" killed his moment with no forethought, but in a moment of blind rage. 

The narrators were found out in different ways too; in "The Tell-Tale Heart" the narrator confessed openly, when he was afraid of being found out, but in "The Black Cat," the police found out not through a confession, but through discovering the body themselves. 

The narrator in "The Black Cat" was an alcoholic, which led to his temper and problems, but the narrator in the other was not--he just claimed to have a "heightened sense of hearing" from a "disease."  Granted, that disease could have been alcoholism, but it isn't specified.

 The supernatural thing that drives these men crazy in the stories is different--in one it's a cat, in the other it's a heartbeat.  And, the purpose in telling their tales also differs.  In "The Black Cat" the narrator says it is just his way of unburdening his soul before he dies; for "The Tell-Tale Heart" the narrator tells his story in a desperate attempt to prove that he isn't insane.




references:

https://www.reference.com/web?q=Irony+in+Tell+Tale+Heart&qo=relatedSearchNarrow&o=35310&l=sem

http://www.gradesaver.com/poes-short-stories/study-guide/summary-the-black-cat



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