WHAT ARE SOME OF THE COMPARISONS BETWEEN tHE CASK OF AMONTILLADO AND HOP FROG. AND WHAT ARE SOME GOOD SITES TO FIND COMPARITIVE ESSAYS BY PROFESSORS AND OTHER RELIABLE SOURCES

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2001

Answers

http//andromeda.rutgers.edu/~ehrlich/poesites.html is Heyward Ehrlich's list of net sites, mostly on the texts. Poe Decoder and www.eapoe.org are good for articles, but this combination might be a little rare.

In short they are obviously lumped together because they involve a jester, a nedieval setting?, and planned revenge for a personal slight. Such a comparison probably writes itself so long as you note the differences. Hop Frog is one of Poe's last creations and is intensely personal at this point. He almost ruins the story with references to his real fight with the establishment and cameo bits from several of his past works, both humorous and vengeful. These allusions to past works contain some interesting, nearly complete REVERSALS of the original. So you have to search out and read those stories for yourself to see how. For example the jester in Hop Frog is the joker killer, not the victim. He ESCAPES the room and burns his victims for light and a way out. The insults come from the King and court, not the jester who performs the highter art- except for the final joke. They asked for it!(true of both stories). More symbolism and references than in the straight forward Cask of Amontillado and told by an outside narrator. I believe, even if you can't find an article comparing the two, even without an article on either one, there is plenty of material here, keeping in mind that at that later time in Poe's life he wanted to make a new start and was exceedingly bitter and desperate both about his life and career.

I think I mentioned in other posts concerning this suddenly popular, purposely ruined tale of Hop Frog, that Trippetta might rather stand for the Pscyhe(soul) of Poe and Hop Frog for the artist himself in his unhappy life with all his frailties and passions. I slipped in a Dante connection as well, for which I wouldn't mind credit.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2001