Comparing The Black Cat And The Tell-Tale Heart

Eyes observe. Eyes perceive. Eyes understand. They know everything about you and who you are. They are the windows to the soul, and they can never be abolished. In the stories The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat, both narrators realize their acts were wrong, but they did them anyway by rationalizing that they were driven by circumstance. The Tell-Tale Heart is about, a man who is trying to prove his sanity, however, in doing so, the proves his insanity. The man who is also the narrator of the story plots to kill the man with the disturbed eye; to rid of the oppressing evil forever. So every night he soundlessly sneaks into the man's room, and searches for any hints of the troubled eye. For eight straight nights, consecutively, he does this

The eye is a key symbol that Poe offers again and again throughout his story. It is the reason that the narrator gives for killing the old man. The Evil Eye could see who he really is; the eye can tell that he is insane; the eye is the window to the soul. As it states in The Tell-Tale Heart, It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.” As the quote shows, the man loathes against the eye so much that he shivers just at the plain sight of it. The eye is what led the man to commit the unforgiving deed. Another symbol mentioned throughout the text are the floorboards. They represent the fact that you can never simply sweep away your problems for they will always find a way to resurface. The floorboards represent the attempt to cover up negative situations. As it states in The Tell-Tale Heart, “I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A

The narrator cuts one eye from his first cat, Pluto in a violent alcoholic rage. He loves the cat so much, but still commits this horrible deed. The man had two cats. Then later kills the cat by hanging it from a tree, and soon after that another cat shows up at his doorstep, coincidently, it had no eye. The eyes of the cats represent the knowledge and knowing of the madness placed within the narrator. They can tell that he is manic, and sanity is not one of his qualities. He knew that killing the cats was the only way of releasing any evidence of his madness. As it states in The Black Cat, “What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes.” This quote shows that, like Pluto, the cat was also missing one of it’s eyes. Another symbol that Poe uses throughout this suspenseful story is the wall. The first wall that accommodated the fire symbolized that you cannot hide your problems. The second wall; the one that the man made, symbolized pride and confidence, and along with the first wall, that you cannot hide your problems. As it states in The Black Cat, “And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it