Compare and Contrast Essay By: Sara Johnsen 12/1/2015 One of the most famous authors of Gothic fiction is Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is well known for his suspenseful and hair-raising themes throughout his stories. One of his most famous short stories is “The Tell-Tale Heart” published in 1843. Another short story of his is “The Cask of Amontillado” published 1846. Both stories while considerably similar have many jurassic differences. The reader is presented with a unstable narrator who commits a murder, but their personalities, their motivations, and their guilt after the murder are notably very different.
In the short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado” the readers are presented with first-person, unstable, murderous …show more content…
In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator grew sick with guilt as he was talking to the cops and he confessed on the scene. His guilt is proven when he says, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!-tear up the planks! here, here!-it is the beating of his hideous heart” (110)! This quote proves that the guilt was too reburst for him to handle and his arrogance just made the guilt worst and he outed himself. Since he truly loved the old man, it was only the eye he wanted to destroy, his subconscious overtook him and he confessed. However the narrator in “The Cask of Amontillado” had guilt for a brief second and then he got over it. When it states, “My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so” (83). He is trying to convince himself that it was not guilt he was feeling it was just the dampness of the catacombs. Which in fact it was not, he was truly feeling guilt of killing his old friend. Though this sick feeling was brief, maybe just for a second he regretted killing him. The reader does not know if Fortunato was his only friend and if maybe the narrator subconsciously feared loneliness and that was the sick feeling he thought was the fault of the nitre. Maybe if he did fear loneliness he pushed it aside and blamed something else to insure himself he was not lonely or going to be. Therefore even though they have many similarities among the similarities there is a ton of
In the short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado” the readers are presented with first-person, unstable, murderous …show more content…
In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator grew sick with guilt as he was talking to the cops and he confessed on the scene. His guilt is proven when he says, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!-tear up the planks! here, here!-it is the beating of his hideous heart” (110)! This quote proves that the guilt was too reburst for him to handle and his arrogance just made the guilt worst and he outed himself. Since he truly loved the old man, it was only the eye he wanted to destroy, his subconscious overtook him and he confessed. However the narrator in “The Cask of Amontillado” had guilt for a brief second and then he got over it. When it states, “My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so” (83). He is trying to convince himself that it was not guilt he was feeling it was just the dampness of the catacombs. Which in fact it was not, he was truly feeling guilt of killing his old friend. Though this sick feeling was brief, maybe just for a second he regretted killing him. The reader does not know if Fortunato was his only friend and if maybe the narrator subconsciously feared loneliness and that was the sick feeling he thought was the fault of the nitre. Maybe if he did fear loneliness he pushed it aside and blamed something else to insure himself he was not lonely or going to be. Therefore even though they have many similarities among the similarities there is a ton of