Comparing The Tell Tale Heart And The Black Cat

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Many people can get away with murder if they blend in, know what to say, and can stay calm under pressure1. In Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrators were very close to getting away with murder. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator is married and has many animals that they take care of, including their cat Pluto. When the narrator starts drinking, he turns cold, abusing the animals and his wife. One night, when he becomes enraged at Pluto, he tries to kill him but ends up killing his wife instead. He buries her in the wall, and when the cops come to his house he is caught. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is angered by a man's eye and decides to kill him. He severs the body and buries it …show more content…

For example, a sense of insanity in the narrators had led to the violence. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator had no objective to kill the man other than his disliking for the eye. His mentally ill state of mind provides an explanation of why he would act in a violent way. He continuously tries to convince the readers that he is sane, which, in turn makes the readers think he is actually insane. In “The Black Cat” the narrators insanity stems from his drunken state. Even the narrator believed “through the fiend Intemperance [I] had… experience a radical alteration for the worse”( ). In addition, the narrators had killed something or someone. In one of the stories, the narrator had meant to kill the cat because it angered him. The wife had tried to stop him from killing the cat resulting in her death, instead of the cats. In the other story, the narrator had intended to kill the man from the beginning. Furthermore, the narrators arrogance had gotten in the way with getting away with murder. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the violence committed had gone unnoticed at first, which cause him to be arrogant and think he could get away with it. When police officers arrived he was calm and invited them inside the room where he killed the man. He believed they would never know because he had been very careful and cleaned everything up. When guilt took over he shouted “I admit the deed! Tear up the planks!”(

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