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Comparing Tell-Tale Heart And The Black Cat – Evil Or Superstition?

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The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat …evil or superstition?

Going through life being superstitious, having an irrational belief in the magical effects of a specific action or ritual. These superstitions people believe are the cause of good or bad luck. Edgar Allan Poe an American writer, critic and editor who is now known for his mysterious and horror poems. Poe’s childhood was not easy, he lost both of his parents at a young age and money was an issue for Poe. According to Baym “Poe understood his audience-its distractedness, its fascination with the new and short lived, its anomic and confusion and sought ways to compelling philosophical issues: the place of irrationality, violence and repression in human consciousness and social institutions”(Baym 687).Two of Poe’s greatest poems are The Tell-Tale Heart …show more content…

These two poems have a lot in common and are both being called “evil” by most critics. In The Tell-Tale Heart the narrator starts the story by describing how nervous he is and asking if we think he is mad. The narrator also answers his own question by saying that how can he be mad and he will prove it that he is not by telling us the story and staying calm. The narrator tells us that his motive to kill the old man was not for money or lack of love but for his evil blue his pale blue eye. Poe writes “He had the eye of a vulture-pale blue eye with a film over it” ( Baym 715). The eye of the old man hunts the narrator for day and night. Many will say that Poe was being superstitious, many culture believe in the “evil eye” in many cultures the evil eye is believed to bring bad luck and misfortune if it is laid upon you. According to Robert Kackur,The Tell-Tale Heart is about father

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