Edgar Allan Poe was a writer known for his ability to create stories that are as twisted as they are thrilling. “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat”, two short stories written by Poe are known to be distressing and quite engaging at the same time for anyone who reads them. The two stories share many similarities and differences but overall the symbols draw emphasis on the stories given that they convey similar topics but at the same time differentiate them.
A similarity that becomes apparent in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” is the eye. In “Tell-Tale Heart” the eye refers to the eye of the old man lying in bed and which the narrator refers to it as the vulture and evil eye. “I undid it just so much that a single thin ray feel …show more content…
“ I saw it with perfect distinctness- all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled that very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot” (paragraph 9). However, later on in the story we realize that it is not the old man that is evil but the narrator himself. In “The Black Cat” the eye refers to the eye of the black cat. “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (520). The eye is considered a symbol in both of the stories because both narrators see the eye as evil. The eye can be represented as I because the eyes can be interpreted as the identity of a person. In both stories the men are unable to recognize their true identity and self and therefore behest them in the eye of the old man and the cat. However, deep down in their selves they know the malevolence and evil within them but not wish to admit it and end up hating themselves and justifying their actions on something that makes no real or physiological sense. For both stories, the men believe that the eye is transmitting a curse on them when
A similarity that becomes apparent in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” is the eye. In “Tell-Tale Heart” the eye refers to the eye of the old man lying in bed and which the narrator refers to it as the vulture and evil eye. “I undid it just so much that a single thin ray feel …show more content…
“ I saw it with perfect distinctness- all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled that very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot” (paragraph 9). However, later on in the story we realize that it is not the old man that is evil but the narrator himself. In “The Black Cat” the eye refers to the eye of the black cat. “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (520). The eye is considered a symbol in both of the stories because both narrators see the eye as evil. The eye can be represented as I because the eyes can be interpreted as the identity of a person. In both stories the men are unable to recognize their true identity and self and therefore behest them in the eye of the old man and the cat. However, deep down in their selves they know the malevolence and evil within them but not wish to admit it and end up hating themselves and justifying their actions on something that makes no real or physiological sense. For both stories, the men believe that the eye is transmitting a curse on them when