Conner Morgan Miss Guentzel Language Arts 8C, Per. 5 12 March 2024 Compare and Contrast Essay “Motives for murder can be condensed into four sets of 'Ls': Lust; Love; Loathing; and Loot.” The horrific short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a great example of this. This story is about a man who wants to have the old man he is caring for die and kills him. This is because he believes that the old man’s eye is evil. He eventually reveals that he did this when he gets interrogated by the police. The horrendous short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl is a great example of an interesting tale. A loving wife kills her husband with a leg of lamb after he tells her something she does not want to hear. She proceeds to cover up the evidence by having the detectives eat the leg of the lamb. …show more content…
First, there are a lot of similarities and the murder was intended to be hidden in both stories. The evidence was concealed under the planks in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and the evidence was consumed in “Lamb to the Slaughter”. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” states, “I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber and deposited them all between the scantlings” (Poe 7). Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter” states, "It'd be a favor to me if you’d eat it up” (Dahl 5). The younger man stowed away the older man’s body on the floorboards and the wife had the detectives eat the proof. The stories are very similar in the fact that both murderers hide the evidence. Second, there are many differences between these two stories. One of these differences is that the murder in “The Tell-Tale Heart” was planned and the murder in “Lamb to the Slaughter” was
Main characters usually face a giant challenge to overcome and have actions that change how they overcome the challenge. In both The Tell-Tale Heart and The Possibility of Evil we learn how our actions affect how we face the world around us. In The Tell-Tale Heart the tone illustrates a new picture describing the feelings of the main character. In The Possibility of Evil the revealing actions that Miss Strangeworth presents eventually will come back to her. Both texts use descriptive language to draw a reader into the story and show them how the main characters reacts to the actions they have caused.
Until the end where the clever detective (who is usually quite an old man, dressed in a smart tweed suit) goes through one by one all of the suspects telling them exactly why they could have committed the murder, but then why they didn't. He then confronts the real murderer who is normally the one everyone least suspects. This all takes place in a large country manor where lots of people would have been busying round but for the murderer, conveniently there are never any witnesses to the crime. The murder is most often well planed out, with a devious reason behind it. The two stories are both very different and mainly the only similarities are that they are both about murders that are done by people that are close family to the victims they murder in there own homes.7 The settings in both of them are very different; in lamb to the slaughter the setting is in a normal home in a small village, where normal family life goes on.
Lamb to the Slaughter is a short story written by Roald Dahl (1953) which the reader can analyze using a feminist lens and Freud’s Psychoanalytical criticism. Mary, the protagonist, is a pregnant housewife who learns from her husband that he is going to leave her. The author describes Mary’s reaction to this terrible news by depicting her as going into a state of fugue in which Mary murders her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, and later destroys the evidence by feeding the cooked lamb to the police officers who come to investigate the murder. This characterization is typical of the attitude of the society of the time of a women, pregnant, presented with a situation she cannot control. Mary’s first instinct is to reject her husband’s news
Some authors use suspense to make their readers more intrigued and to create a feeling of wanting to know more. In “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl, Billy Weaver is looking for a place to spend the night and finds himself in front of a bed and breakfast. However, the Landlady, owner of the bed and breakfast, is a murderer. However in “A Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator originally wants to kill the old man because of his eye the beat of the old man's heart is what drives the narrator over the edge. But, the police came and the guilt and the sound of his own heartbeat made the narrator confess to killing the old man. Therefore suspense is depicted in both Roald Dahl’s short story, “The Landlady” and Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “A Tell-Tale Heart” through the use of tone and character development.
Have you ever felt the urge to know how it feels to be insane. Have you wonder how it would feel to be rid of something that haunted you for eight days. Have you felt the thrill of getting rid of it by ending it. I might be a little crazy but, I strongly believe that tell tale heart is appropriate for the 8th grade standard. “What is the Tell Tale Heart?”, you my ask. Tell Tale Heart is a horror genre story that is about a man who suffers from a mental disease, and he lives with a old man that never harmed him or wronged him. What made him kill him was because of the old man’s eye. “It was like a vulture’s eye” (pg.89) so he stalked him in his sleep every night for seven days just to see the old man’s eye open. His verge to insanity he was not stable. He was already ill, but instead of seeking for help he states that it sharpened his senses. He stated that he was trustworthy (no end mark; reread this run-on
One of Dahl's more popular short fiction stories for adults is "Lamb to the Slaughter." I am going to be using this story in my comparison against another Murder Mystery called "Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Like many of Poe's other works, the Tell-Tale Heart is a dark story. This particular one focuses on the events leading the death of an old man, and the events afterwards. That's the basics of it, but there are many deep meanings hidden in the three page short story. Poe uses techniques such as first person narrative, irony and style to pull off a believable sense of paranoia.
In the article, “The Question of Poe’s Narrators” James W. Gargano discusses the criticize in “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and tries to help the readers understand why Poe writes the way he does and identifies some of the quotes in his work. According, to Gargano, other authors view’s Poe’s work as “cheap or embarrassing Gothic Style” (177). The author is saying that Poe’s work makes the reader look at themselves not only the work. The author explores three main points. Some author thinks that Poe’s life is reflected in a lot of his work, uses dramatic language to show his style in work, and explains how Poe’s work manipulates his readers to understand.
I chose the three short stories to write about based on my views of each. I picked three completely different stories to read and write about, so I can at the end, form my opinion.
Everyone hits rock bottom or hits that breaking point in their lives. For some people it may be sooner than others. Our actions can be justified in some ways, where it depends on the person’s mental state, physical state, or emotional state. Additionally, we always try to find a reason on why our actions may be perceived to be right in our own eyes. In “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates the concept of morality through the state of madness, horrific narration and strong symbolism.
Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl, instantly grabs a reader’s attention with its grotesque title, ensuing someone’s downfall or failure. The saying “lamb to the slaughter,” usually refers to an innocent person who is ignorantly led to his or her failure. This particular short story describes a betrayal in which how a woman brutally kills her husband after he tells her that he wants a divorce. She then persuades the policemen who rush to the scene to consume the evidence. This action and Patrick’s actions show the theme of betrayal throughout the story which Roald Dahl portrays through the use of point of view, symbolism and black humor.
The major part of the story was mostly about the guilt of the narrator. The story is about a mad man that after killing his companion for no reason hears a never-ending heartbeat and lets out his sense of guilty by shouting out his confession.
The short story “Lamb to The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl is about the death of a detective who has been murdered by his wife. As officers arrive they can’t seem to find the murder and the murder weapon. The short story Lamb to The Slaughter is interesting to read because the author allows readers to put their own perspective into the book. Another reason is the storyline and finally the theme.
In the “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is extremely uncanny due to the reader’s inability to trust him. Right from the beggining the reader can tell that the narrator is crazy although the narrator does proclaim that he is sane. Since a person cannot trust a crazy person, the narrator himself is unreliable and therefore uncanny. Also as the story progress the narrator falls deeper and deeper into lunacy making him more and more unreliable, until the end of the story where the narrator gives in to his insanity, and the reader loses all ability to believe him.
Betrayal is one of the prominent themes in the novel, In the Country of Men. The theme of betrayal is portrayed among family members, friends, and the state vs the citizens. Loyalty is considered to be an essential characteristic to be a man. The constant theme of betrayal is highlighting how fear and oppression can push someone to betray another person furthermore, how betrayal is directly linked to how that society defines manhood.