Comparison Between The Tell Tale Heart And The Black Cat Essay Samples

The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart are stories written by Allan Edgar Poe. Both stories deal with real life situations with then narrators in the stories trying to convince the audience that the old man or the cat made them commits the heinous crimes in the story. The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart are perfect crime stories, but in the end, the murderers are convicted. The two stories have narrators who are alike in a way that they have a questionable sanity. Allan Poe presents stories whereby love turns into hatred and later on murder. In The Tell Tale Heart, the narrator ends up killing the old man yet he loved him. On the other hand, in The Black Cat, the narrator murders Pluto his cat after his love for the cat turned into hatred. Just like the two stories, Poe’s life was surrounded by sadness and death. The two stories have a number of similarities and differences. The stories share the elements of love, hatred, insanity, and murder. The narrators in the stories are similar too but their intent to commit murder is different.
The way Edgar Allan Poe uses the themes love and internal hatred together in his poems, The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart, reveals his fascination with death and sadness. The use of love, hatred, and death not only creates an identifiable author's style, but also reflects the author's personality in his literary masterpieces, The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart. Poe explores the theme of love and hatred which are opposite emotions in the two stories by blending them into each other. In The Tell Tale Heart, implies that, hatred and love are always together. The theme of love and hate are depicted by the speaker in The Tell Tale Heart. The narrator in the story confesses to fall in love with an old man, but later on violently murders the old man in the story. The narrator’s madness begins when he decides to separate the person he loves from the old man that has an evil vulture pale blue eye. The evil eye is what triggered hatred in the narrator because, he loves the old man but he does not want to see the evil eye. The narrator says, "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 39). The narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart cherished the old man, but he hated the old man’s “vulture eye” and this made him murder the old man. In addition, the hatred he felt for the eye haunted him until he committed murder.
Edgar Allan Poe explores a psychological mystery whereby there is love and hate and people tend to hate or harm the people they love. The protagonist adored the old man, and the love he had for him made him murder his evil eye not knowing that he was actually killing the old man. The protagonist wanted to disconnect the old man from the eye he hated and he ended up murdering the man himself. The narrator’s desire was to get rid of the old man’s eye, and this motivates his hatred, which overcomes his love for the old man, thus leading to death and sadness. Therefore, Poe did a great job with the theme of love, hatred, and death in the story which reveals his fascination with sadness and death.
In The Black Cat, the theme of love and hate are also presented by the narrator. As the story begins, the narrator is a gentle person who loves animal, but later on, he is transformed into a killer, who killed an innocent cat. The narrator loved Pluto, his cat but later on due to the effects of alcohol, the love for the cat is turned into hatred. He starts mistreating not only the cat, but also other animals and his wife. After returning home drunk and cutting out one of Pluto’s eyes after a confrontation with the cat, he feels remorseful but the love for the cat was already turned into hate. Initially, the narrator was fond of the cat, but later on the great fondness turns into great hatred. The narrator’s hatred was not only for the cat, but also for his wife whom he loved. As the story ends, the narrator kills his wife as she tries defending the animal.
As Poe wrote the stories, it is evident that he though about himself. All the people Poe loved in his life died his wife, mother, and father. In The Black Cat the narrator loved his pet cat and his wife and they all ended up dead. In addition, in The Tell Tale Heart the narrator loved the old man and he died at the end of the story. It is noticeable that, Poe’s fascination with sadness and death is evident in the two stories. He wrote stories with a theme of love, hatred, and death, just like what happened to him in his life (Schuster 12). In addition, he tries to parallel most of his writings to his personal life. Poe’s main characters in the two stories share the bond of insanity, love, and hatred.
In conclusion, Allan Edgar Poe is a profound writer who writes elaborate and captivating stories with the theme of love and hatred. The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart are great literary works that presents narrators who portray the theme of hatred and love at the same time. The narrators in the stories were compassionate at the beginning of the story, but the love is later on turned into hatred and ultimately murder. Edgar Poe uses the themes love and internal hatred all together in The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart and this reveals his fascination with death and sadness. The narrators end up with sadness and death after their affection is turned into hatred. On the other hand, this is exactly what happened to Edgar Allan Poe after he lost his father, mother, and wife; the people he loved. It is noticeable that Poe is fascinated with sadness and death as they are recurring themes in most of his works. Edgar Poe was surrounded by death and sadness in his life and this made him have a connection to it through his writings. The author expresses his obsession of death and sadness by demonstrating a deep understanding on the subject throughout The Black Cat and The Tell Tale Heart stories. The people Poe loved in his life all died, comparably, the people the protagonists loved all ended up dead. The author’s personal experience with sadness and death shaped the plot of the two stories.

Works Cited

Obaid Niwar A. Stylistic Analysis of The Black Cat by Edgar All Poe. Academia.edu. 2013.
http://www.academia.edu/6063249/Stylistic_Analysis_of_The_Black_Cat_by_Edgar_All_Poe
Poe Allan Edgar. The Tell Tale Heart. 2011. Gale Cengage. Enotes.com pdf.
Schuster, Selina. A literary comparison of Edgar Allan Poe´s "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." Term Paper, American Studies – Literature, GRIN Publishing, 2011. 18. http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/233119/a-literary-comparison-of-edgar-allan-poe-s-the-black-cat-and-the-tell-tale.
Poe, Edgar A. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Literature for Life. New York: Pearson, 2012. 39-42. Print.