Comparing The Narrator In Tell-Tale Heart And The Black Cat

The story of “The Black Cat” starts off with a man that seems like an alcoholic, but has the tendencies of a sociopath. The way he acts throughout the story makes him seem like a sociopath, based on the fact that he abuses his wife and cat out of anger, even though he claims to love his wife. Though it is difficult for sociopaths to love and care for others, it isn’t impossible. The man lacks organization, and like common in sociopaths, tend to lean on substances that eventually lead to substance abuse, like alcohol. He talks about his past and his hardships. He also talks of his love for whom he married, and the cat they got together afterwards. The wife was becoming fond of this cat and the cat showed kindness towards his owner, the man. He rapidly becomes more out of control to the point that he starts to abuse his wife, quoted, “I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.” The man became angry that the cat was nice to him and how his wife loved that cat. He later on in the story admits his anger is getting out of control; eventually, he starts to take his anger off on his wife. One day he becomes so fed up with the cat’s kindness that he uses a pen-knife to remove the cat’s eye causing the cat to begin to ignore him, in a sense of distrust and fear. This enraged the owner even more towards the creature that he hung it in a tree. It is not clear

The storyteller begins the story by stating from an early age he has had an obsession with animals. Poe states, “This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.” (Poe) This statement is evidence of the insanity the narrator experienced at a very young age. He goes on to explain that he and his wife have many domesticated animals, including Pluto, a large beautiful black cat. He describes the mutual fondness between him and the cat. This relationship between him and the cat, is strange. For years they have a growing friendship, until he started drinking alcohol in excess. The narrator goes on to explain how one night after getting completely intoxicated, the cat panicked and bit him. This causes the author to become angry and in a psychotic fit of rage, he takes a knife and cuts out one of the cat’s eyes. After this encounter, the cat fears him, and tries to avoid him at all cost. In the beginning, the storyteller is regretful and feels remorseful for the cruelty. But soon we see the narrator’s insanity expressed when Poe states, “But this feeling soon gave place

reader develops an inference that the narrator may not make it out of the situation alive. Comparatively, the narrator from “The Black Cat” has the same point of view as the narrator in “The Man in the Black Suit.” The husband in “The Black Cat” seems to believe that he is alone until he meets this cat named Pluto who genuinely loved him. The narrator faces a hardship when he says “...I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence;-hung it because I knew that in doing so I was committing a sin…” (Poe 2). Through this quote, readers can infer that the narrator had a problem mentally and according to the

A Tell-Tale heart by Edgar Allen Poe and The Landlady by Roald Dhal are two short horror stories about murders committing self-serenity. The Tell-Tale Heart regards an unknown man with a deranged mind. He murdered an innocent man spite of his eye. However, he is overwhelmed by guilt and confesses his crimes. “The Landlady” recounts a story of a traveller, Billy Weaver, stumbling upon a bed and breakfast.

The Black Cat is one of Poe’s most memorable stories. The story was first published in 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. This like a study of the psychology of guilt, paired with other works by Poe. “Near the beginning of the tale, the narrator says he would be "mad indeed" if he should expect a reader to believe the story, implying that he has already been accused of madness” (Cleman). Poe is creating a sense of confusion for the readers and making them think more about the story before reading. The story is centered around a black cat and the idea of deterioration of a man. From his prison cell, the narrator is writing the story about his life which is falling apart. He has a love for animals, and for his wife that he married young. One of the things that he takes on as a hobby, is

To conclude this argument it is very clear that the actions that took place in, “The black cat,” are the narrators fault. It is on account of him being an alcoholic, being in a poor mental state, and being abusive to his wife and pets that the fault lies in the

He claims that he hung the cat because it loved him, and because it did not do anything to deserve the punishment. Because of this, the sin that he committed would jeopardize his soul forever. No sane man would do this to an animal that he claimed to love. Again the narrator is not in control of his body and is being controlled by the supernatural and shows signs of mental illness.

In the first stanza, the author argues that the cat may have died from curiosity, but that it may have been a chosen death. “Or else curious to see what death was like, having no cause to go on licking paws, or fathering litter on litter of kittens, predictably.” (lines, 2-5) Basically, the author is

In Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" we question the sanity of the narrator almost immediately, but we cannot prove either way whether or not he is insane. I have read a lot of Poe's work although not all of it. His mysterious style of writing greatly appeals to me. Poe has an uncanny talent for exposing our common nightmares and the hysteria lurking beneath our carefully structured lives. I believe, for the most part, that this is done through his use of setting and his narrative style. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the setting was used to portray a dark and gloomy picture of an old house lit only with lantern light with a possible madman lurking inside. I think this was

Edgar Allan Poe, the acclaimed poet, has created a multitude of short stories, one being “The Black Cat”.The short story depicts an alcoholic on his slow descent into insanity; this relates heavily to the author’s own life, being an extreme alcoholic himself. The narrator of “The Black Cat” is not only driven mad by alcohol, but also by a black cat, as you might guess from the title of the story. At the beginning of “The Black Cat”, you can tell the narrator’s alcohol addiction is taking its toll when he starts abusing his wife and pets. His actions slowly led up to him killing his cat, Pluto, and then killing his own wife because tried to defend their second cat from him. His meticulous writing style, diction, syntax, and imagery in his short stories are used to portray his emotions.

The Narrator in “The Black Cat” is explained as a man who fell into alcoholism and let deception take control over his mindset (Poe 79). His change of perspective over things causes him to believe his beloved first black cat (Pluto) is evil and demonic when the cat bites him one day (Poe 80). During the illusion from the excessive alcohol, he hangs Pluto (Poe 80). From guilt further on from killing his first cat, the narrator adopts another black cat. A while later, he comes to believe that the new cat has the same characteristics that Pluto had (Poe 82). In an act of fit from the new Black cat almost tripping him on the cellar stairs, the narrator starts to try to kill him with an axe (Poe 84). His wife comes in and tries to stop him, but instead that causes him to kill her. The narrator hides his wife’s body in a cellar wall, meanwhile the cat vanished (Poe 84). Four days later, the police came to do a thorough search. The narrator acted strangely calm and innocent, as if he had done nothing. They discovered her corpse with the cat standing on her head howling in the cellar wall though, and took the narrator into custody. (Poe 85-86).

Moreover, it has been argued that the cat is a metaphor for the narrator’s wife. Critics claim that the following passage raises suspicion that the killing of the first cat was actually the murder of his own wife. Poe writes: Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th. 1. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 705-711. Print.

In “The Black Cat,” the man was married to a patient and caring woman. They acquired another cat that, according to the man, looked remarkably like Pluto (709). One day, the cat almost tripped the man while they were walking down a flight of stairs. This “exasperated” the man “to madness” (Poe 709). He lifted an axe and “aimed a blow at the animal,” (Poe 709).

The narrator of “The Tell Tale Heart” is unreliable because he exaggerates many of the “sane” actions he performed. The narrator boasts to the audience how, “[he]

An unreliable narrator is a narrator that necessarily cannot be trusted by the way they talk, and or the way they describe the way certain events occurred. You cannot believe everything an unreliable narrator says. Edgar Allan Poe’s narrators in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are unreliable because they are both mentally ill or have a serious problem with drinking. When reading a story you want to know all the details correctly and an unreliable narrator can change your understanding of the story, which both of the narrators do in the two short stories. The narrator's show a lot of evidence that they are both unreliable because of their sicknesses.