Compare and Contrast Poe’s Fiction to Hawthorne’s

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Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were writers of the American gothic genre. They both used the elements of horror and mystery in their writing styles, writing about the dark side of humanity and the evil that lives within the human mind. Both used themes and symbols that focused on darkness and evil with their characters fighting various psychological issues. However, Poe’s stories are told in the first person narrative and he focuses on one human psychological effect, looking at man’s thoughts from within his mind and how his behavior then affects his surroundings. Hawthorne uses the third person and focuses more on how man’s thoughts and behaviors are the results of what is happening around him. Both Poe and Hawthorne used symbolism to tell their stories. In The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe uses a number of symbols such as the old man’s eye and heart. The narrator notes that the old man’s eye “the eye of a vulture….whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” is the reason the old man must be killed - even though he “loved the old man” (Poe 691). When he looks into the old man’s ro...

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