A Tale Of Two Murders Essay, Research Paper

A narrative of two slayings:

Comparing the & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart.

Edgar Allan Poe has frequently been considered the male parent of the psychological thriller. Two of his best illustrations are & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado. & # 8221 ; Both are first-class short narratives that tell of slaying, retaliation, and lunacy. The storytellers of & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; and the & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; are seeking to convert the reader of their saneness but have merely become victims of the lunacy, which they had hoped to get away. By analysing the differences and the similarities of & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart, & # 8221 ; one can see that Poe uses a certain attack in making these two plants.

Poe has been the centre of many critical surveies ; most seeking to dissect his head and acquire into the bosom and significance of his work, & # 8220 ; Criticism now tends to inquire, non whether Poe is a great author, but why & # 8221 ; ( Buranelli 132 ) . Poe & # 8217 ; s characters in both & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; confess of slaying. Not merely do they both commit slaying, but they besides escape external penalty and endure eternal internal convulsion. Therefore, & # 8220 ; The penalty comes non from a church, a jurisprudence, or even from society: it comes from some interior irresistible impulse of the evil-doer

himself who suffers & # 8230 ; Thus he has willed his offense and he wills his requital & # 8221 ; ( Davidson 189 ) . Both characters take the lives of the work forces in the narratives with small respect, & # 8220 ; These characters are themselves god-players & # 8221 ; ( Davidson 189 ) . In & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; the storyteller confesses to the unsuspected constabulary to have his penalty, & # 8221 ; in this regard the God easy passes into the Satan and becomes his shaper and his killer both & # 8221 ; ( Davidson 190 ) .

In both narratives, the reader becomes rapidly cognizant of the fact that both storytellers are non dependable. The storytellers feel that they performed the slayings so calmly so there is no manner they could be huffy. In both narratives the storyteller is continually emphasizing to the reader that he is non huffy, and attempts to be converting of the fact by how carefully these barbarous offenses were planned and executed. The reader is invited into the interior workings of the storyteller of & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; and Montresor & # 8217 ; s sinister heads. Montresor starts from the get downing pleading for his saneness ; & # 8220 ; It must be understood that neither by word or by title had I given Fortunado cause to doubt my good will. & # 8230 ; to smile in his face, and he did non comprehend that my smiling now was at the idea of his immolation & # 8221 ; ( 209 ) . The same is true in & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; , the storyteller wants us to believe his saneness merely to corroborate our ideas that he truly is huffy, & # 8220 ; You should hold seen how sagely I proceeded- with what caution- with what foresight- with what

deception I went to work! & # 8221 ; ( 543 ) . When an writer creates a state of affairs where the supporter tells a personal history, the overall impact of the narrative is heightened. This allows the audience to see what the storyteller is truly intelligent, his ain perceptual experience in warranting slaying.

Human nature is a delicate balance of light and dark or good and evil. Most of the clip this balance is maintained. However, when there is a displacement the dark side surfaces. How and why this dark side emerges differs from individual to individual. In & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart, it is the & # 8220 ; vulture oculus & # 8221 ; of the old adult male that makes the storyteller & # 8217 ; s blood tally cold, in & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; , it is a & # 8220 ; thousand hurts of Fortunado. & # 8221 ; It is this irrational fright which evokes the dark side, and finally leads to slay. The storytellers repeatedly insist that they are non huffy, but the reader shortly realizes that both of the storytellers & # 8217 ; frights have consumed them.

Both storytellers have shut out human emotion every bit much as they could. Yet they both have minutes of commiseration for their victims. In & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; it is one brief minute followed by an account, & # 8220 ; My bosom grew ill ; it was the moistness of the catacombs that made it so & # 8221 ; ( 214 ) . He catches himself experiencing sorry for Fortunado but is excessively proud to go on. In & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart the storyteller openly admits his feelings, but he had no hatred for his victim to get down with, & # 8220 ; I knew what the old adult male felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at bosom & # 8221 ; ( 544 ) .

Another unusual similarity between the narratives is the burial arrangement. Both storytellers bury their victims under their houses. Thi

s emphasizes their insanity ; there are several grounds for this. One ground could be that they are maintaining them as trophies. Another ground is that the places symbolize the murders’ heads and the cellar represents their subconscious. Edward Davidson writer of “Poe: A Critical Study provinces ” No 1 can understand or can construe, in this moral part of Poe’s lost psyches, why he must be punished” ( 189 ) . The narratives terminations and the narrator’s penalty depends on how deep the storyteller is able to set their victims under their houses and, hence, how deep in their subconscious. Furthermore, ” It is false to name him little more than an creative person of incubuss, hallucinations, insane offenses and eldritch beauties, little more than an intuitive poetic mastermind dabbling in pretentious logic when he is non lost in the black wood of pathological psychology” ( Buranelli 21 ) . Poe reaches inside all of us with all his plants, makes us review our egos and our ain actions.

& # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart and & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; are both narratives of premeditated slaying. In & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; the storyteller is convinced that the old adult male in the narrative has an evil oculus that becomes a passion of abhoring for him ( Davidson 189 ) . The Cask of Amontillado harmonizing to Quinn, & # 8220 ; is a powerful narrative of retaliation in which the involvement lies in the

implacable nature of the storyteller, By his evident involuntariness to take his enemy to his household vaults, he deepens his retaliation & # 8221 ; ( 500 ) . In & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; the storyteller, Montresor, is revenging his household s slogan: & # 8220 ; Nemo me impune lacessit & # 8221 ; or & # 8220 ; No 1 assails me with impunity, & # 8221 ; and in & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; the storyteller is taking the evil oculus from his life.

From the really beginning of the narratives, you can see the similarities. The puting sets up the temper and in both & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; and The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; the scene is darkness. Poe uses this darkness in the scene as a blunt metaphor for the heads of both storytellers. & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; covers a period of about eight yearss with most of the of import action happening each dark about midnight. The location ne’er alterations from the aged adult males house. In & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; the narrative begins around twilight, one eventide during the carnival season in an nameless European metropolis. The location rapidly alterations from the blithe activities to the dark, moist catacombs under Montresor & # 8217 ; s house.

One of the major differences in & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; is the cause behind each slaying. In & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; the old adult male had done nil to the storyteller, & # 8220 ; He had ne’er wronged me. He had ne’er given me insult & # 8221 ; ( 542 ) . In & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado, the

opposite is true. Even thought Montresor ne’er tells what Fortunado did it was plenty for him to desire retaliation, & # 8220 ; The thousand hurts of Fortunado I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon abuse I vowed retaliation & # 8221 ; ( 209 ) .

The storyteller of & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; finally lets his guilty subconscious return over and he imagines that the sound of the old adult males crushing bosom is so loud that the constabulary officers can hear it besides. This sound he imagines drives him to the point of complete lunacy, & # 8220 ; They heard! & # 8211 ; they suspected! & # 8211 ; they knew! & # 8211 ; they were doing a jeer of my horror! & # 8221 ; ( 546 ) . He finally confesses at the extremum of his mental interruption down, & # 8220 ; In the terminal, if a incorrect is done, society ne’er punishes the felon: he is caught by a malignant destiny which had long foreseen the moral being of the condemnable himself. For he becomes, as in & # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; his ain justice and executioner & # 8221 ; ( Davidson 210 ) . In & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor is now squealing but merely to a beloved friend that he feels will understand his demand for retaliation, & # 8220 ; You, who so good cognize the nature of my psyche, will non say, nevertheless, that I gave vocalization to a menace & # 8221 ; ( 209 ) . He is merely stating this narrative because if no one knew of his slaying it would hold been in vain. He is proud of his achievements and wants person to be amazed at his narrative.

& # 8220 ; The Tell-Tale Heart & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; The Cask of Amontillado & # 8221 ; are gripping

horror Tells with many similarities and some differences. Coming directly from the heads of both storytellers, who are evidently undependable, the narratives are taken to a new degree of strength. The secret plans of premeditated slaying and the scenes full of darkness show that Poe had the same basic lineation for both narratives.