Compare And Contrast Tell-Tale Heart And The Cask Of Amontillado

845 Words4 Pages
Edgar Allan Poe, the highly influential and well-known Gothic fiction writer, was famous for his gruesome and suspenseful short stories. One of these short stories is ‘The Tale-Tell Heart’ a which was published in 1843 in the magazine The Pioneer. Another short story written by Poe is ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ which was published in 1846 in the magazine Godey's Lady's Book. Both of these stories have main characters that exhibit signs of madness and kill the antagonist, but both protagonists have differences in personality, motive, and guilt. The narrators in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ are both mad, but they possess different kinds of madness. The protagonist’s madness in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ is an uncontrolled delirium.…show more content…
yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with s film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man”. This quote shows evidence of him being under the delusion that the innocent man's eye was something to be hated, even feared. In fact, he believed the only way to escape the eye was to kill the man, and the eye along with him, which is a definite sign that the protagonist was in an uncontrolled madness. Conversely, the protagonist in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, Montresor, has a controlled madness, bordering on psychopathy. This is displayed through Montresor’s utter disregard towards the antagonist, Fortunato's, pleas for help, “A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the chained form… I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the…show more content…
In ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, the main character’s motive for killing the old man is explained on page 105, “He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye!”. This quote clearly states his motive for killing the man was not about death or greed, but instead it was for the old man's eye. In contrast the protagonist in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ had a vastly different reason for killing the antagonist. On page 75, Montresor states,“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge”. In short Montresor said that when Fortunato insulted him, he vowed to have revenge. In Montresor’s case this meant him killing Fortunato, meaning that Montresor’s motive for killing Fortunato was revenge. Along with the two main character having different motives, the way guilt is interacted with differ as
Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Tell-Tale Heart And The Cask Of Amontillado

    601 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many of his work is now also a part of the literature studies. stories two of them were "Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado". Both the stories have a similar theme and genre. Each are an example of mystery, macabre, suspense and thriller. Although both the texts share the same theme, they have many differences too. The main difference is the motive of killing the victim. In the Tell-Tale Heart the motive of killing is because of the "hideous pale blue eye" of the old man. Which resembled

    Read More

More about Compare And Contrast Tell-Tale Heart And The Cask Of Amontillado

Open Document