In most stories, the reader relies on a narrator to relay any information required to understand the events occurring in the story being told. In the case of Edgar Allan Poe's “The Black Cat”, the narrator presents a story of his past as he believes it happened to him. It is unfortunate however, that the narrator comes off as quite unreliable. Not only does he constantly repeat notions of his sanity, but he often displays extreme and irrational emotions, and presents his story in a pseudo-logical manner that manifests itself in his rambling narration and unexplainable actions. The narrator begins his story by stating, “mad am I not”(1). By telling his story, he is attempting to find, “...some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.”(1). He wants the reader to tell him that he is, in fact, not mad. Throughout the story, the narrator never takes the blame for any of the atrocities he commits, instead he places the blame on alcohol. He makes claims to say that because of his drinking, his very spirit would leave his body and that would just take control of his body. The narrator also states a number of times that large amounts of alcohol were imbibed prior to telling the reader of some other horrible thing he had done. A drunk is not capable of being reliable enough to tell a story accurately. However, it is quite unclear as to whether the narrator's personality was not already disturbed to begin with. At the start of the narrator's story, he says that since he was young, he had always been tender and compassionate. He adored animals, so his parents provided hi... ... middle of paper ... ...aft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb."(32). The narrator is himself to blame for his own capture and subsequent order to execution. The reason the narrator was compelled to convey his story was so that others could read, evaluate, and agree with him that his actions were that of a man of perfectly sound mind caught in a storm of unfortunate coincidences. By penning the tale of his crimes, he wishes to have the reader alleviate his conscience. Upon carefully contemplating his tale, it is regrettable nobody would be able to tell him what he hopes to hear as he is clearly the opposite. He must instead deal with what he has done as he heads towards the gallows. Works Cited Poe, Edgar A. "The Black Cat." Discovering Literature. 3rd ed. Prentice Hall. 436-43. Print.
*the narrator is looking back on what he has once witnessed long ago, and it's haunting him, makes him feel guilty and ashamed.
Edgar Allan Poe depicts his narrator in the story as a man who is believed to be mad. The narrator assures that he is sane and that...
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is the story of the narrator and his decision and act to kill an old man with whom he lived. The narrator and the old man are never named throughout the story, neither are any supporting character such as the neighbors or the policemen. This aspect of the story gives the characters anonymity and takes the reader into the story, even calling them out at various points throughout. The narrator in this story is not given a history or even a description. His actions and thoughts through the story, lead the reader to believe that he is partially, if not wholly, insane. The recurring elements that lead to this conclusion are the narrator’s overwhelming paranoia, his fixation with the old man’s eye, and his
Tell Tale Heart is a short horror story by E.A. Poe that is told from the first person perspective and describes the murder of an old man. The main character plots the crime because he (supposing the narrator is male) is irritated by the old man’s “evil eye”. The narrator kills the old man in his sleep, dismembers the body and hides the corpse parts under the floorboards. The main character is not suspected until he confesses the murder to the police believing everyone can hear the beating of the dead man’s heart from under the floor. Tell-Tale Heart is not a confession but an apology. The murderer tries to prove that the hideous crime, no mater how irrational it might seem to the readers, was planned and carried out in the calculated and premeditated manner. The narrator tries to convince the readers that he was conscious of his motives, actions, and intentions. What is more, he stresses that there was no trace of permanent or temporary mental disorder, let alone insanity. However, the choice of the point of view, tone and mood of the Tell-Tale Heart allow Poe to create the opposite effect and convince the readers that the story is an account of a madman. The psychological effect of the first-person narrative, the tone and symbolism let Poe enhance the gruesome effect of the story. The point of view chosen by Poe also makes readers feel as if the insane narrator addresses every reader personally. A vide range of stylistic devices is employed to make the story frightening from the very beginning.
The sanity of his storytelling discontinues when he explained to the readers that he loved the old man, but his mind went against him; deciding to stalk and kill the old man. The description of the narrator’s thoughts the eighth day he stalked the aged man where… “Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has
During the American literary movement known as Transcendentalism, many Americans began to looking deeper into positive side of religion and philosophy in their writing. However, one group of people, known as the Dark Romantics, strayed away from the positive beliefs of Transcendentalism and emphasized their writings on guilt and sin. The most well-known of these writers is Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was a dark romantic writer during this era, renown for his short stories and poems concerning misery and macabre. His most famous poem is “The Raven”, which follows a man who is grieving over his lost love, Lenore. In this poem, through the usage of tonal shift and progression of the narrator’s state of mind, Poe explores the idea that those who grieve will fall.
...story, the narrator continues to repeat himself over and over, along with question why the reader should have any uncertainty about his psychological state. Additionally, the narrator continues to defend his sanity by telling the reader that he cannot be considered crazy because he was mindful and took caution in his actions: “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work!” (1). With Poe’s writing style and use of language he achieves an emotion of genuine doubt about the narrator’s true mental state. Moreover, Poe reveals the narrator’s fear of the “vulture eye” and his peculiar obsession with it until he is finally able to eliminate it.
Furthermore, Poe’s plot development added much of the effect of shocking insanity to “The Black Cat.” To dream up such an intricate plot of perverseness, alcoholism, murders, fire, revival, and punishment is quite amazing. This story has almost any plot element you can imagine a horror story containing. Who could have guessed, at the beginning of the story, that narrator had killed his wife? The course of events in “The Black Cat’s” plot is shockingly insane by itself! Moreover, the words in “The Black Cat” were precisely chosen to contribute to Poe’s effect of shocking insanity. As the narrator pens these he creates a splendidly morbid picture of the plot. Perfectly selected, sometimes rare, and often dark, his words create just the atmosphere that he desired in the story.
How can we justify a man is mad or not? A man may talk like a wise man, and yet act like a mad man. In Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator depicted a story that he killed the old man because of the old man’s so-call "evil eye" which made his blood run cold. Althought the narrator tried to persuade the reader that he was normal, several pieces of evidence of confusing illusion and reality adequately indicates his madness and absurdity. By examining his behaviour and mind, I will expound his madness thoroughly.
...us on deadly revenge. In each case, a retribution that is carried out in a cruel and callous fashion. The men fulfilling these actions are cold, calculating, and contemplative. They have painstakingly endeavored to seek retribution against what has plagued them: Fortunato and his insults to the Montresor and the old man’s piercing, chilling eye for the man from “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Driven to the point of madness by their own obsessions, they plot to murder their offenders. The tales are told each by the man who has indeed committed the crime. Each man’s insanity becomes more and more clear as they narrate confession; the Montresor with the unfailing ease with which he dictates his account and the man from “The Tell-Tale Heart” with his jagged and rough delivery. Their distinct mental instability calls into question to reliability of the report they give.
The presence of the two cats in the tale allows the narrator to see himself for who he truly is. In the beginning the narrator explains that his “tenderness of heart made him the jest of his companions”. (251) He also speaks of his love for animals that has remained with him from childhood into manhood. However, Poe contradicts this description of the narrator when he seems to become annoyed with the cat that he claims to love so much. While under the influence of alcohol the narrator is “fancied that the cat avoided his presence”(250) and as a result decides to brutally attack the cat. This black cat symbolizes the cruelty received by slaves from whites. The narrator not only “deliberately cuts one of the cats eyes from the sockets” (250) but he also goes on to hang the cat. Once the narrator successfully hangs the cat the tale begins to take a very dark and gothic-like turn. The racism and guilt of the narrator continues to haunt him once he has killed the black cat. Th...
"Now this is the point. Your fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me"(42 Backpack Literature). Reading such words can create a wide imagination about what the character is truly like. The narrator in the story has an indirect personality where as you read you find out more and more about him.The narrator in Edger Allan Poe's "The Tell- Tale Heart" seems like he makes himself completely insane but as readers we are never told of any psychological problems, if any, that he may have.The characterization by Poe of the narrator crease a puzzle which makes the story interesting. I would characterize the narrator as being secretive, insane and nervous.
The Sleeper, by Edgar Allan Poe, was first published in the Poems of 1831; this poem has since been revised from its current version which was printed in 1845. This poem was written during the Romanticism Period. This time period is defined as a time in which poets began to “rebel against the Neoclassical restrictions and dominance of reason as poetic aim. Romantic poetry celebrated the imagination over rationality, passion, and dreams over reason and external reality, and isolated individuality over collective humankind. Romantic poetry looked to celebrate both the supernatural and elevate the commonplace.” (Henriksen) Poe’s imagination prevails in this lyric poem. The speaker of the poem experiences an internal conflict while mourning the death of a loved one.
The fixation on the old man's vulture-like eye forces the narrator to concoct a plan to eliminate the old man. The narrator confesses the sole reason for killing the old man is his eye: "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to rid myself of the eye for ever" (34). The narrator begins his tale of betrayal by trying to convince the reader he is not insane, but the reader quickly surmises the narrator indeed is out of control. The fact that the old man's eye is the only motivation to murder proves the narrator is so mentally unstable that he must search for justification to kill. In his mind, he rationalizes murder with his own unreasonable fear of the eye.
Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Black Cat immerses the reader into the mind of a murdering alcoholic. Poe himself suffered from alcoholism and often showed erratic behavior with violent outburst. Poe is famous for his American Gothic horror tales such as the Tell-Tale Heart and the Fall of the House of Usher. “The Black Cat is Poe’s second psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. He added a new element to aid in evoking the dark side of the narrator, and that is the supernatural world.” (Womack). Poe uses many of the American Gothic characteristics such as emotional intensity, superstition, extremes in violence, the focus on a certain object and foreshadowing lead the reader through a series of events that are horrifying and grotesque. “The Black Cat is one of the most powerful of Poe’s stories, and the horror stops short of the wavering line of disgust” (Quinn).