Edgar Allan Poe Stories

Edgar Allan Poe

The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that was first published in The Pioneer in 1843. It’s an old gothic tale about a man who kills his friend because he feared his eyes which reminded him of a vulture’s eyes. Edgar Allan Poe builds up the elements of suspense through the darkness that is inside his character's mind and heart. He establishes the theme of guilt and its relation to the madness of the narrator. Guilt is present in the heart of the narrator but he is unable to admit his illness or madness and his obsessions are offered through imaginary events.

Edgar Allan is famously known for his poems and tales of mystery and horror that provoked interest among readers. The-Tale Heart is a story about a psycho man who is also the narrator and protagonist of the story. He murders his old friend because he is afraid of his "evil eye" and his “beating heart”. The story deals with a man’s mental disabilities and madness and focuses on the narrator’s obsessions but the narrator does not accept his illness or insanity that leads him to kill his friend ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"pasNOhUA","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Amir, 2018)","plainCitation":"(Amir, 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":17,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/RBNYwj78/items/NZE5PX5G"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/RBNYwj78/items/NZE5PX5G"],"itemData":{"id":17,"type":"article-journal","title":"Analysis of the Short Story \"The Tell-Tale Heart\" by Edgar Allan Poe","page":"596","volume":"II","source":"ResearchGate","abstract":"The TellTale Heart\" by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story written in the genre of horror. It describes the committing of murder and then confessing it due to being tormented by guilty conscious. The paper aims to analyze the story thoroughly including its themes and literary and rhetorical devices. The methodology used for the paper is discourse analysis which essentially reveals socio-psychological characteristics of the protagonist who is an unnamed person, telling a tale about a crime he committed to prove that he is not insane. The paper discusses in detail various aspects of the story which are directly or indirectly connected to the motives and psychological impulsions behind committing the crime by the protagonist. The paper concludes that the story has been written to provide a study of paranoia 1 and mental deterioration. Introduction:","author":[{"family":"Amir","given":"Shamaila"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",10,9]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Amir, 2018). For instance, the narrator at one point says, "If still, you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body". Instead of accepting his crime, he describes his abilities to kill the man and tells the skills of hiding the dead body. His paranoia is replaced with superiority when he says in the story that, “no human eye- not even his-could have detected anything wrong”. But his guilt of killing the man puts him into despair and continues to fall deeper and deeper. He believes that the guilt that he is feeling is not because of the murder, rather it’s a disease given to him by the evil eye, an “eye of a vulture”. He is so much afraid of the eyes that he uses words like “hideous, damned, and vultures” while describing the eye.

Thus, this gothic tale silently talks about the illness and guilt of a man who is not ready to accept his crime but at the same time, he is guilty of attempting murder of his close old friend.

The Black Cat is another famous short story with deep psychological elements which was published in 1843. It is a story of a man who has a loving wife and a pet Pluto. The story has a smooth start but as soon as he gets into drinking, his life changes. It is shown that Alcohol is a major reason for disturbance in his life and a reason for his mental breakdown. The narrator is fully aware of his mental illness and understands what he doing with his wife and with his cat. He also notices the changes that are occurring inside him because of drinking alcohol. Alcohol is the foremost reason for his life upheaval ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"t6ExVcna","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Buday, 2014)","plainCitation":"(Buday, 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":15,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/RBNYwj78/items/PFJ5FMC6"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/RBNYwj78/items/PFJ5FMC6"],"itemData":{"id":15,"type":"article-journal","title":"Psychoanalyzing “The Black Cat”: The Journey from Emotional Transference to Displays of Psychopathy","container-title":"English Matters","page":"11-15","volume":"5","source":"ResearchGate","abstract":"This article discusses a novel approach to the possibility of interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative “The Black Cat”. It offers an interpretive model of the narrative on the basis of the psychoanalytical approach with the focus put on anti-social behavior coupled with the psychological phenomenon of emotional transference. The analysis of the story’s narration focuses on the unreliability of the narrator with respect to the transparency of the events unfolding during the course of the story. It also uncovers the element of the social realm of human experience within the story which asserts itself as a pivotal part of the narrative.","title-short":"Psychoanalyzing “The Black Cat”","journalAbbreviation":"English Matters","author":[{"family":"Buday","given":"Maroš"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014",12,15]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Buday, 2014).

In ‘The Black Cat’, the narrator cannot control his anger after drinking and losing his mental ability to behave properly. Poe gives a detailed description of the narrator's illness before and after drinking alcohol. He not only kills his wife, but his cat also comes under his inhumane behavior. Like in the story, the narrator says, "I grew day by day moodier, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others". The narrator behaves nicely with his wife and his cat when he does not drink and once the narrator gets drunk, he commits multiple heinous crimes under the influence of alcohol. Later he takes full responsibility for his deeds at the end of the story.

Poe has successfully portrayed the ill behavior of the narrator and the effects of alcohol in his life. It is important to understand the overuse of drugs as the story suggests to be careful of alcohol because it can not only destroy relationships but also can make a person insane.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Amir, S. (2018). Analysis of the Short Story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. II, 596.

Buday, M. (2014). Psychoanalyzing “The Black Cat”: The Journey from Emotional Transference to Displays of Psychopathy. English Matters, 5, 11–15.