Hannah Stahmer
Essay Two
Burkart
12/6/16
The Beauty of Self
“Cats don’t have names…. now you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are” (Gaiman). If you aren’t familiar with the childhood story of Coraline, the underlying messages of self-discovery and the power of knowledge are prominent throughout the tale. The cat represents knowledge and aids the young girl in the development of herself. The theme of self-exploration, self-expression and emergent identity can be found within many literary works, especially in those by transcendentalist authors. The internal conflict, known as man versus self, describes an individual 's struggle with morality or their own flaws, while the external conflict of man versus society shows …show more content…
Edgar Allan Poe was a particularly influential writer during the eighteenth century and is a well-known for his contributions to the romantic style of writing. Romanticism was a literary movement that put emphasis on emotion and individualism. Poe’s writing style is specifically a sub-genre of Romanticism known as Dark Romanticism, which celebrates intense fascination with melancholia, insanity, crime, and the grotesque. His exploration into the darker side of human expression is vital to American Romanticism because of his raw insight of what it means to be a human being. The Tell-Tale Heart depicts a man’s mental deterioration and his regression into madness while focusing on his obsession, the man’s pale blue vulture eye. Eyes are often symbols of one’s true nature. In the Tell-Tale heart the “eye” or “I” in the story is a representation of the narrator’s hidden self, and his problem with accepting his identity. This explains the anger and terror he feels when he looks at the old man and his desire to relieve himself of the piercing stare. The narrator’s illusion that he can hear the incessant beating of the old man’s heart is in actuality his own guilt beating at his conscience. The Narrator’s experience of internal conflict between feelings of responsibility for the man and his own feelings of elimination, ultimately lead to his own self destruction. “I admit the …show more content…
Conflict brings characters’ life allowing us to see a little of ourselves in their innate humanity, and is simply two opposing forces that keep you intrigued and allow you to learn and grow with the characters. Internal conflict arises when a character experiences two opposite emotions or desires and causes mental agony, portrayed in Poe’s work and external conflict is a struggle with outside forces of opposite thought as seen in Bartleby, the Scrivener. If the narrator of Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, never experienced conflict between good and evil/ killing the man or not killing the man, the story would be pointless and uneventful. If Bartleby never “preferred not” the story would be about a boring man with a boring job. Conflict brings a sense of humanity to the characters and helps readers to learn and grow from the story 's
Essay Two
Burkart
12/6/16
The Beauty of Self
“Cats don’t have names…. now you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are” (Gaiman). If you aren’t familiar with the childhood story of Coraline, the underlying messages of self-discovery and the power of knowledge are prominent throughout the tale. The cat represents knowledge and aids the young girl in the development of herself. The theme of self-exploration, self-expression and emergent identity can be found within many literary works, especially in those by transcendentalist authors. The internal conflict, known as man versus self, describes an individual 's struggle with morality or their own flaws, while the external conflict of man versus society shows …show more content…
Edgar Allan Poe was a particularly influential writer during the eighteenth century and is a well-known for his contributions to the romantic style of writing. Romanticism was a literary movement that put emphasis on emotion and individualism. Poe’s writing style is specifically a sub-genre of Romanticism known as Dark Romanticism, which celebrates intense fascination with melancholia, insanity, crime, and the grotesque. His exploration into the darker side of human expression is vital to American Romanticism because of his raw insight of what it means to be a human being. The Tell-Tale Heart depicts a man’s mental deterioration and his regression into madness while focusing on his obsession, the man’s pale blue vulture eye. Eyes are often symbols of one’s true nature. In the Tell-Tale heart the “eye” or “I” in the story is a representation of the narrator’s hidden self, and his problem with accepting his identity. This explains the anger and terror he feels when he looks at the old man and his desire to relieve himself of the piercing stare. The narrator’s illusion that he can hear the incessant beating of the old man’s heart is in actuality his own guilt beating at his conscience. The Narrator’s experience of internal conflict between feelings of responsibility for the man and his own feelings of elimination, ultimately lead to his own self destruction. “I admit the …show more content…
Conflict brings characters’ life allowing us to see a little of ourselves in their innate humanity, and is simply two opposing forces that keep you intrigued and allow you to learn and grow with the characters. Internal conflict arises when a character experiences two opposite emotions or desires and causes mental agony, portrayed in Poe’s work and external conflict is a struggle with outside forces of opposite thought as seen in Bartleby, the Scrivener. If the narrator of Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, never experienced conflict between good and evil/ killing the man or not killing the man, the story would be pointless and uneventful. If Bartleby never “preferred not” the story would be about a boring man with a boring job. Conflict brings a sense of humanity to the characters and helps readers to learn and grow from the story 's