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Edgar allan poe writing analysis literary devices
Edgar allan poe writing analysis literary devices
Edgar allan poe analysis writing
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The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado are two stories written by Edgar Allen Poe in the 18th century. Both of these stories are primarily focused on the mysterious and dark ways of the narrator. Since these stories were written by the same author, they tend to have several similarities such as the mood and narrative, but they also have a few differences. For instance, the characteristics of both narrators are different, but both stories portray the same idea of the narrator being obsessive over a certain thing.
The Tell-Tale Heart begins with the narrator explaining that he is not mad, rather just very disturbed by about the vulture eye of the old man living in the same house. He seemed to be a bit nervous more than anything. On the other hand, the narrator of The Cask of Amontillado seemed to be quite arrogant. He was very confident that his plan to have revenge on Fortunato was going to work. Although the traits of the narrators are not quite similar, they both had the same idea in mind. That idea was to commit murder on a man they had a problem with. To me, both narrat...
The “Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and serves as a testament to Poe’s ability to convey mental disability in an entertaining way. The story revolves around the unnamed narrator and old man, and the narrator’s desire to kill the old man for reasons that seem unexplainable and insane. After taking a more critical approach, it is evident that Poe’s story is a psychological tale of inner turmoil.
Along with comparisons, there are also many contrast between The Tell Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado. In The Tell Tale Heart the man killed out of insanity over the old man’s eye, but in The Cask of Amontillado, the narrator killed out of jealousy, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” In The Tell Tale Heart the narrator panicked and cut the body up in order to hide it, while the narrator in The Cask of Amontillado remains calm during and after the crime was committed. Another difference between them is that the narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart” confessed to the crime out of guilt and insanity, “Villains!’ I shrieked, ’dissemble no more! I admit the deed!--tear up the planks!--here, here!--it is the beating of his hideous heart!” In The Cask of Amontillado the narrator is never caught. After looking at the difference’s between Poe’s work it is very entertaining to compare the stories to his life.
The Cask of Amontillado, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is a chilling story about two men named Fortunato and Montresor. The story begins with a narrator voicing his anger and resentment towards a man named Fortunato for “a thousand injuries” and insults. Our narrator sees Fortunato and lures him down into his vaults, or “catacombs,” on the premise of verifying that some wine is a certain type. Fortunato was already drunk, and had a cold. Eventually, the men reach a crypt, and the narrator chains Fortunato to the wall. Not stopping there, the narrator begins to trap him in the hole by filling it with bricks. Fortunato is quiet, until the hole is nearly filled, when he screams and then tells the narrator that it was a good joke. The narrator’s name is revealed to be Montresor. Montresor calmly takes the last brick and prepares to slide it into place, but stops and listens. All he hears are the jingling of bells. Then Montresor puts in the last brick, hence sealing Fotunato’s fate. There is chilling irony woven all throughout The Cask of Amontillado. It isn’t until the end of the story that we discover the tale took place fifty years before. Montresor’s vile deed’s motivation can be largely attributed to social class, fulfilling what he considered to be “just retribution” for the unnamed insult that was given him by Fortunato.
To some of the most fanatic and most creative Poe fans the question may arise: could I reproduce the great Edgar’s works? And if the answer is yes, then how? We might assume that Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most recognizable authors and poets not only of his age but of the whole modern literature, but still we would face numerous difficulties in trying to imitate his writing. Also, placing him into a certain style or literary movement would give us some really tough hours. Poe can be considered either a Romantic or Gothic writer but we could find a number of arguments and counterarguments for this matter. Poe, in fact, reinterpreted the whole Gothic horror style and created a unique, distinct brew of Gothic fiction, Romanticism and his own gloomy mind. On the basis of A Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-Tale Heart, we can deduct that despite the uniqueness of Poe’s works there are some recurring elements in Poe’s short-stories. Generally, if anyone wanted to write a Poesque short story, here are the ingredients: a fine case of murder, a big spoonful of madness and a pinch of revenge.
In the ten years following 1836, Edgar Allan Poe established himself as a short story writer, writing the well known stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” in 1843 and “The Cask of Amontillado” in 1846. As dark as his nature was, the two stories were equally dark, one about a man killing an elderly man with a creepy eye, and the other about a rich dude killing someone who insulted him. As both of the tales possess main elements of murder and death, both of them also have elements that link the stories even more such as their protagonists, character motivations, and resolutions.
The narrators in both works prove to be similar in several ways. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the story is told through a psycho narrator; both stories contain apparent psychological imbalances within their story tellers, “ -his central character or narrator so psychologically obsessed with a mysterious phenomenon that everything in the story irresistibly revolves around it...”(May, Charles E.) There really is no motive for the murder of the old man; just his eye that he cannot stand. He repeats himself frequently, trying to assure the reader, and himself, that he is sane; leading to believe he may not be psychologically stable. In “The Cask of Amontillado” the narrator can also be considered a mad man by the way he plays games with his victim. Montressor says to Fortunato that they should go home because “his health is precious.” This conversation is ironic because Montressor does not really want to protect Fortunato's health, but to kill him in the catacombs. Both of the narrators are proud of their murders and brag about them within the stories. Not only are the narrators similar but the settings are alike once the murders take place, both locations of the victims are buried in a dark place with no escape.
1. What can the reader infer about Montresor’s social position and character from hints in the text? What evidence does the text provide that Montresor is an unreliable narrator? We learned from paragraph 23 to 24 that Montresor owns a Palazzo and also has lot of retainers based on that evidence, the reader can infer that Montresor is a very wealthy and successful man. About his character, the reader can imply that Montresor is a heartless, cold blooded, sneaky, manipulative, and untrustworthy man, as well as a man who hold on to grudges. Moreover, Montresor is an unreliable narrator, because he reveals in the first paragraph that he intends to have a revenge on Fortunato, but he did not indicate or clearly prove to the readers how Fortunato
The irony in, “The Tell Tale Heart” is more obscure. The narrator is an insane and a man who has agitation, yet tries to persuade the reader that he is not just sane, but rather logical. He proves this by calmly explaining why the violent act happens, but only resulting in contrary to what is being influence to the readers. One of the act that takes place, was “every night, about midnight, [the narrator] turns the latch of [the old man’s] door and opened it ....It took [him] an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that [he] could see [the old man] as he lay upon his bed”. (1) It is abnormal enough for someone to speak repetitively, the narrator broke this boundary, in putting his somewhat mad plan into action. Another ironic moment was the need to confess his murder at the end of the story, due to guilt that is feeding on him alive. Though he is free of the judgmental eye, he is to be imprison for his
The two stories, “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and “A&P” by John Updike have some similar attributes and differences in the narration of their stories. The Tell-Tale Heart is narrated by an unnamed character while A&P has a narrator and character named Sammy. Both the people talking in the stories have difference and similarities in how they talk to the reader often skewing their perspective. The main characters of both the stories are not convincing in telling their stories
Poe's, The Cask of Amontillado is a story about fear and revenge. The story begins with Montressor's vow of revenge, foreshadowing future actions. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult vowed revenge..." Montressor had to be sure not to raise suspicion of what he was going to do Fortunato. Montressor knew that Fortunato had a weakness that he could use towards his advantage.
Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" is a short story about how a murderer's conscience overtakes him and whether the narrator is insane or if he suffers from over acuteness of the senses. Poe suggests the narrator is insane by the narrator's claims of sanity, the narrator's actions bring out the narrative irony of the story, and the narrator is insane according to the definition of insanity as it applies to "The Tell Tale Heart".
"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 general setting of each novel depicts the theme of the story throughout the whole plot. In “Tell-Tale Heart,” the story was presumably taken place during a dark, dreary night. The dark night portrays the plot remains to be sinister, uncanny, and unpredictable till the conclusion. However, “The Cask of Amontillado”
Poe presents the narrators of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado" as devious, obsessed characters. Both are overpowered by the need to consume the life of their victim. Though they use different strategies to carry out the murders in different ways, obsession is the driving force in both. It is this obsession that inspires them to design cunning strategies and carry out the executions.
Poe 's work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a deep impact on American and international literature. His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Many anthologies credit Edgar Allan Poe as the "architect" of the modern short story. Poe was the author of the two short stories “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado”. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” the narrator has an obsession fixed on the old man’s “evil” eye which leads him into madness and hate, and to killing the man he claims that he loved. The Montresor of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” hates his enemy Fortunato and he becomes obsessed with the thought of getting back at Fortunato, his hate becomes increasingly