Similarities Between The Tell Tale Heart And The Black Cat

A common theme that is seen throughout many of Edgar Allan Poe’s text, is madness. Madness that will make the whole world turn upside down and around again. Madness that takes over somebody’s life. Madness and eye imagery is present in both “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart” by Poe where madness is at first a fairy tale but then ends with a crash back to reality.Both stories share components of murder and insanity, and are very similar, not at first glance but if looked at more closely.

In “The Black Cat”, the main character is consumed so much by his madness, which grows more and more as the story goes on and eventually ends with him being put in jail for murder of his wife. The madness first starts when his love for his black cat, Pluto,turns to utter hatred. He stabs out the

eye of the black cat in frustration.

He brutally describes him stabbing the cats eye, "I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket"(p5) Pluto’s perspective of his master went from loving to fear and recognizing cruelty, experiencing both a literal and physiological change of vision. From then on Pluto sees his master differently, and sees the world differently as well in result of his now one eye. Additionally, the reader's eyes for his cat are sharpened and changed at this moment as well. The madness in the Black Cat then escalates when the narrator's hatred for Pluto consumed him, and he hangs him outside the garden.Mysteriously, when coming home drunk a few weeks after the murder of his cat, a black cat similar to Pluto appears in front of the narrator, missing an eye as well but has white fur on its stomach unlike Pluto. He brings the cat home in hope it will replace the cat he now misses and remorses for killing. Soon his liking for his cat turned to bitterness and hatred. The madness inside of him decreased with the death of Pluto, and returned with

a ruthless force that he could not control. He soon entered his basement with his wife, and was angered when the cat could fall. Madness taking over him, he attempts to attack the cat with an axe, but is stopped by the wife. With no sanity left in him and only madness, he attacks his wife and puts the axe in her head killing her. He tears down the wall, and hides his wives body in it. He then looks for the cat, so he can finally kill it. The police show up, and he allows them in to search his house. Confident he won't get caught, he taps the wall where his wife's body is hidden commenting on how well the house is made. Suddenly a noise comes from a the wall, “..I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!- by a cry, at first muffled and broken…. And then then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman- a howl- a wailing shriek, half a horror and glad of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell…..” (p14) His confidence and madness leads him to getting charged with murder, and a presumption of going to jail.

In “The Tell Tale Heart” the narrator is consumed by madness as well, and is destroyed by it. His insanity leads to murdering a man, because of his eye. However, he is unsure himself why he murdered the man. He states, “ I think it was the eye. His eye like the eye of a vulture…” (p1) This truly shows his insanity when he checks on the old man every night at midnight for 7 days, but was unable to kill him because the eye was closed.Finally, the man awoke on the 8th night. With the eye open, his mind gave that as a reason to finally kill the man. He murders the man, chops him up into many pieces, and hides him under the floorboards. The police show up, and the narrator kindly invites him in, so confident that he will never get caught. Madness has the narrator so calm that the police don't suspect him at all. However, his sanity is long gone, and soon hears the old man's heart beating below the floorboards. He soon tears up the floorboards in attempt to stop the heart from haunting him.

Both stories by Poe “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” are very similar in multiple ways, from denying their mad, to killing without a sane reason. Both of the narrators commit and successfully conceal murder, but ultimately get caught because of their own insanity. The madness leads the narrators to end their life of normalcy, and start a new life in jail. Poe starts both stories with an update on the narrator's life, and ends leaving the readers confused how the story just changed so drastically. When first reading the narrator's seemed very different because of their living standards and relationships. However, as the stories goes on your quickly discover that both narrators are indeed made, both narrators tell their tales and defend their sanity. The narrator in Tell tale Heart states, “Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad?”(p1) and the narrator in the Black Cat states “Mad indeed would i be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am i not-...” (p3) Both deny they aren't mad, but both end up killing a person for no intentional reason.

Madness is seen throughout “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” very similarly, through murder and eye imagery.Both stories share components of murder and insanity,and leave the reader astonished.