I need to do a paper on Edgar Allan Poe explaining the differences and similarities between "The Black Cat" and "The Telltale Heart." I already have a few, but I want this paper to be well written. So please.....does anyone know??? Thank You!

-- Anonymous, November 18, 2002

Answers

Well one is sane and the other temporarily insane from drink. Both murder through a mistaken notion and rage only to have their conscience betray them. perhaps the biggest difference is the most obvious. The alcoholic has a domestic situation to ruin, the young man lodging with an old man is already living a more cramped and blighted existence. For Poe the eye of the beloved is a beacon of hope. The young man has only the horrors imagined in the "evil" glass eye to fixate upon. Poe liked cats. In that story the narrator carves out the cat's eye. Heart beats betray. The cat'showls betray the hiding place. Visual instigation for murder. Audio conscience signals the police. Trying to harm the black cat and the guilt and reminders it keeps coming back with leads to the death of his wife as well. Provocation, rage, attempt to hide the deed. Inner conscience manifests itself outside their narrative consciousness and (Imp of the Perverse) betrays them. The man will be hung. The madman, still protesting his sanity is different in still stricking to the extraodinary interpretation of evenets. The man in the Black cat sees them as household events and ordinary. Both hold the horror of what has occurred as their strongest sensation, perhaps even more than guilt for the sane man.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2002

i believe the similarities are pretty ovious so here are some diferences. 1st. in "The Black cat" The narrator confeces in order to clear his concience while in "the tell-tale eart" he confeces to prove his sanity. 2nd. The happenings that lead to the discovery of the body. although they are both mysterious noises one is produced in the deranged mind of the killer and the other is lead by an inexplicable source(the cat)

hope this helps.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2002