Khoa Tran

Poe’s The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart share many similarities and differences, regarding their various writing elements that contribute to the single effect. Both stories share thematic and situational similarities such as scenes of the grotesque or the direct parallelism of the author’s life to the stories. However, the stories differ such that The Tell-Tale Heart include details or lack thereof that demand the input of the reader to further understand, use of syntax, imagery, as well as, other literary elements.

Both short stories share in common the following: punctuation, thematic and situational similarities, and striking details of the Poe’s life in his stories. The two short stories use dashes in order to signal points of importance. For example, The Black Cat entails of how, “Pluto—this was the cat’s name—was [his] favorite pet and playmate,” (Poe 1). The prior indicates that something made this cat different from the rest of his menagerie; as well as, the inclusion of Pluto, the Roman God of the underworld, foreshadows a bad future for the deity was an omen of death. Also, The Tell-Tale Heart, “Smiled,--for what had I to fear,” (Poe 3) verified the man’s level of insanity; he acquired such a level of confidence that he thought he could get away with murder. Both stories show how guilt consumes all and leads to confession. The man in The Black Cat at first feels guilty for having hurt the cat but over time succumbs to rage and kills it; this become a self-perpetuating event that becomes his ultimate demise when he tries to kill his second feline companion which is the cause for his downfall. In Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, the man’s downfall is also the man success like in The Black Cat; he kills the old man in necessity to relieve him of the vulture-like eye but later becomes deranged when he hears the voices in his minds, causing the authorities to arrest him. Finally, Poe imparts parts of his life into his stories relative to how he always loses things in his life suddenly—the man in The Black Cat loses everything in a fiery fire, and the other man in The Tell-Tale Heart went from a successful murderer who thought he got away with it to a crazy jail bird. Such elements of macabre in this story causes a person to produce heightened senses, causing the reader to take in the eeriness and interpret it into his or her own version of fear (and it is also the reason why have had many sleepless nights).

The Tell-Tale Heart unlike The Black Cat contains disharmony, alternate uses of punctuation, and structure, while The Black Cat specializes in its use of characterization and remorse. The man in the The Tell-Tale Heart has contradictory feelings for the old man, thought processes, and his conviction. He likes the old man but hates his vulture-like eye which he describes as having, “A pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold,” (Poe 1), while The Black Cat maintains the man’s constant fits of rage towards his animals. The man tells the reader how he is not crazy and did not commit the crimes he was convicted of yet later confesses and revels in his success of his murder. Though both stories share the use of similar punctuation, The Tell-Tale Heart utilizes exclamation points and dashes in such a way that it adds a sense of panic to the narrators speech and provides a disconnect between perception and reality which can be seen in the following quote: “No doubt I now grew very pale;--but talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice,” (Poe 3). The story is broken in order of sequential events from start when he is rambling in his cell to finish when he becomes psychotic after hearing the voices in his head. The Black Cat on the other hand characterizes its main character differently; the man admits to his insanity and blames alcoholism for his ailment (Fiend Intemperance). This is interconnected with remorse for when his remorse degrades his action worsen; ironically, he referenced to his “old heart” that used to be magnanimous shortly afterward in the story he hurts the cat.