Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19 1809 in Boston Massachusetts. He was an American poet, writer, literary critic and editor. He was orphaned at an early age before he was even three years. He was raised as a foster child by John and Frances Allan in Richmond Virginia. He excelled academically at the University of Virginia but dropped out due to grabbling debts. His tales are gothic and contain cold creepy characters. This paper will focus on comparison of styles and themes in two of his short stories- The Tell-Tale Heart and The black Cat.
Summary of the stories
The unnamed narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart narrates the events that led to him to commit unthinkable crimes against his pet the black cat named Pluto and the wife of his youth. However, he maintains that he is sane. He developed the love for animals at an early age and had a kind heart. The narrator becomes so fond of Pluto. Eventually he starts drinking, mistreats his pets, and does not spare his wife. He kills both Pluto and his wife, he is unable to hide his crime forever, and eventually he is discovered. This story is similar to The Tell-Tale Heart in which a man kills an old man because he cannot stand his blue pale eyes that he considers evil. In all this, he claims he is sane just like the narrator in The Black Cat. At the end, he cannot hide his guilt in the murder and he makes a confession of the crime to the police officers who visit the old man’s house.
Comparison of themes
The theme of violence is major in both stories. In the Black Cat, the narrator details his violent acts against the pets and his wife. He was very fond of his cat and the cat attended to him. Their friendship lasted for many years. However, his temperament changed together with his character and he started to be violent towards his household. He says, “I even offered her personal violence” (Levine and Krupat 1594). He used intemperate language on his wife and for the pets he confesses, “I not only neglected but ill-used them” (Levine and Krupat 1594). He unleashes violence towards Pluto by gouging out his eye when he returns home one night drunk. “…. And deliberately cut one of its eye from the socket” (Levine and Krupat 1594). He felt guilty for committing this crime but drowned himself into wine further to forget his heinous act. He wanted to punish the cat for avoiding him because their relationship had changed and the cat became the persecuted. According to Cromwell “the man needed control and power over the cat; this need presented itself in a perverse hyper-masculine act of violence” (1). This hunger for control eventually turned into perverseness and led the man to murder Pluto by hanging him using a robe. As he hanged it, he cried because he loved the cat yet he killed it in cold blood. Violence is hard to fathom because how does one kill a pet or person that one claims to love dearly. Similarly, in The Tell-Tale Heart, the man kills the old man in cold blood and dismembers him. He says he loved the old man but he could not stand his evil eye. The old man’s pale blue eyes trigger the narrator’s hatred.
Home is another theme in both stories. In The Black Cat Poe gives the picture of a sinister home. The couple seem happy at first and love their pets. Nonetheless, something goes wrong and the once seemingly happy home turns violent. The home, which is supposed to offer a scene of security, becomes a violent scene where murder and domestic abuse take place. The narrator destroys his home violently and eventually destroys himself as he is now in prison awaiting execution the following day. Likewise, in The Tell Tale Heart the home is also a place filled with violence. The old man is isolated and anguished in his own especially on the night that he is murdered.
Perverseness runs in The black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart. Poe explores the spirit that leads a human being to commit murder or violence. “Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our bets judgement, to violate that which is law, merely because we understand it be such?” (Levine and Krupat 1594). For example, the narrator hangs the cat even though it had not given him any offence just as the narrator killed the old man “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me” (Levine and Krupat 1589). The urge to kill is so strong that the two narrators cannot resist it even though they know that they have no reason to commit the crimes. The perverseness and the desire to kill in the narrators go beyond their psychological realm into possession. Templer urges that they are seeking a scapegoat for their actions just like any other human being (1).
Style
Poe’s narratives fall under the genre of gothic or horror fiction. His narratives deal with death, supernatural, fear, perverseness of man, snapped minds and so forth. The Tell Tale Heart has death and perverseness. We are not to tell exactly why the narrators kill their victims in cold blood. The victims die in their homes and this raises a deep fear that we might not be safe at home. So many things can go wrong at home. In these psychological thrillers, we get an opportunity to get inside the minds of the narrators who explain in detail the murders they commit.
The style of symbolism has been employed in the stories. The second cat in The Black Cat represents a nightmare or guilt that the narrator carries. The cat does not leave him. It is with him during the day and night, “I never knew the blessing of rest anymore!” (Levine and Krupat 1597). The cat kept reminding him of his former crime and thus he started to develop evil thoughts against the cat. The cats also represents how a man can breech social norms and commit crimes for the sake of committing crime as the narrator put it” to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only” (Levine and Krupat 1594). In The Tell Tale Heart, the old man’s eye represents the obscured vision that human beings have of the world. Just as the eye had a film over it, their outlook of the world is obscured. The narrator says the old man’s eyes were vulture- like and it would make his blood run cold. The narrator kills the man to rid him of the eyes’ gaze forever. This could also depict how a man tries to get rid of things he or she considers imperfect or evil and in the process end up being destroyed.
The other symbol is the bed and the bedroom in The Tell Tale Heart. These two represent death and murder and this is contrary to what a bedroom and bed should be. The narrator peeps into the old man’s bedroom as he is sleeping and finds him asleep at his most vulnerable state. He strangles the old man in bed and hence uses it as a murder weapon. Instead of enjoy peace and rest in his bedroom the man dies there. In The Black Cat, the penknife that the narrator uses to gouge out the cat’s eye is typically used to sharpen but it is also used as a murder weapon. Ironically, the eye of the cat is sharpened and it can see its owner’s cruelty and avoids him henceforth.
The tone in The Tell Tale Heart is sad. The narrator is nervous and thus elicits pity. In The Black Cat, the tone is urgent because the narrator is penning the story on the eve of his execution to unburden his soul. He is also ashamed of his act “I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity” (Levine and Krupat 1594).
Poe uses the device of suspense throughout The Tell-Tale Heart right from the start in the opening sentences “True! Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” (Levine and Krupat 1589). The reader immediately wants to know why the narrator talks about being mad. Suspense is heightened by the use of time. The narrator says that he would take up to an hour to get his head through the opening. The narrator must be planning to do something terrible because he says that for an hour not a muscle of his body moved. The narrator goes to a great length to fulfil his desire of killing the old man and thus the reader waits for the inevitable demise of the old man. Lastly, in the stories Poe uses the devices of style to explain the horror that the narrators commit to their unsuspecting victims.
Works Cited
Cromwell, Jim. Literary analysis: the black cat, by Edgar Allan Poe. Helium.com. 2010.
Levine, Robert S and Arnold Krupat, Eds. The Norton Anthology American Literature seventh Edition Volume B 1820-1865. New York: W.W Norton & Company Publisher, 2007.
Templer, Alwin. Literary analysis: the black cat, by Edgar Allan Poe. Helium.com. 2010.