Comparing 'The Tell-Tale Heart And Rip Van Winkle'

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Washington Irving’s short story “Rip Van Winkle” use nature in different ways. Edgar Allan Poe mostly writes gothic stories, and “The Tell-Tale Heart” falls into his most popular category. Poe’s story is about a man who is filled with rage when he sees the vulture eye that belongs to the old man that he cares for. The man believes that his senses have sharpened .Through the story, he goes into the old man’s room and checks the eye. One of the nights he gets mad and decides to kill the old man. The man ends up hiding the body but he confesses to the murder of the old man because he thinks he hears the heartbeat of the old man. Irving’s story is about a man named Rip Van Winkle. Winkle is a well know man throughout the town. One day he wanders into the woods and falls asleep for twenty years. When he wakes up he doesn’t realize that he has

Poe uses Connotative language to express the darkness in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Poe’s lack of nature causes the story to contain bad experiences. In Poe’s first sentence the man says, “True!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been, and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them” (Poe 691). Poe’s choice of words and the short choppy sentences create the dark mood of the story. The lack of nature also helps create a suspenseful mood. In Irving’s story “Rip Van Winkle”, nature is everywhere. When talking about Rip Van Winkle Irving says, “It could not be for the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and as heavy as a Tartar’s lance, and fish all day without a murmur even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble” (Irving 31). The use of nature in this sentence gives the story a lighter mood. It flows with words that give the readers a sense of peace and it lets the readers enjoy the