A Comparison of The Purloined Letter and The Black Cat

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A Comparison of The Purloined Letter and The Black Cat

In this essay I will be comparing the two short stories, 'The

Purloined Letter' & 'The Black Cat'.

The Purloined Letter is about a detective (Dupin) who is asked by the

Parisian Police prefect over a Purloined Letter. An eminent minister

has stolen an important letter and it contains information that can be

dangerous for an important individual. No one can find the letter even

though knowing who has it. Dupin has had past history with the

minister, the motivation to get revenge and also Dupin's superior

intelligence helps Dupin to recover the letter.

On the other hand The Black Cat has a totally different story line.

The Black Cat is about the narrators downfall into madness and

murderous violence, his love for animals changing into hate, which is

all fuelled by alcoholism.

After the narrator murders his cat, he has a lot of guilt on his

shoulders. Having so much guilt he finally finds a replacement cat,

which looks similar to his old cat but has a spooky factor to it. The

spooky cat is the result of the narrator's downfall at the end, when

he ends up murdering his wife. The spooky cat gets its revenge when

the police, for the murder of his wife, catch the narrator.

The two stories, which have hardly anything in common story wise, have

some similarities in some aspects of the stories.

First of all, looking at both of the stories plots you can see they

are two completely different short stories. The Black Cat and the

Purloined Letter have a lot of plots, which is probably the only

similarity between both of the stories. The Black Cat has a violent,

murderous plot ...

... middle of paper ...

...e Purloined Letter all each have a characteristic,

which builds up the detective type story, which is mostly about

mystery. On the other hand The Black Cats characters give the story a

more disturbing and haunting vibe.

There are no real similarities between any of the two stories

characters. Except maybe the mysteriousness of the Cat could be

compared to Dupin's mysteriousness. Also both of these characters have

vengeance on their minds.

I think that both stories are good, but do not hold hardly any major

similarities between each other. This is probably because The Black

Cat is a horror and a faster paced story, while The Purloined Letter

is more slow and intellectual. Maybe the only main things that are in

both stories and are similar is probably the mystery in both of the

stories and the thirst for revenge.

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