This is clear in the opening sentence when the narrator says “TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” The enhancement of his insanity is conveyed through the repetition of “nervous” and “very”, which evidently portray his unstable state of mind and thus the likeliness for him to commit such a brutal and sadistic murder. Furthermore, the language and syntax used by Edgar Allan Poe has the ability to lure the reader to believe that the narrator is anxious and uneasy; a character whose insanity shines through his speech. Unlike the narrator of “The Tell Tale Heart”, the narrator of “The Pit and the Pendulum” maintains the capacity to recount faithfully and rationally his surroundings while also describing his own emotional turmoil and the burden of emotional distress does not hinder his account of the
There is no supernatural tint in TCOA at all. In TCOA, Montresor reflected nothing but satisfaction throughout the entire plotting and carrying out of his murderous revenge; however, in TBC, the narrator was racked with guilt over his behavior in the early stages of his lunacy. In fact, until he killed his wife (who was ever loving and patient - as he once was) he alluded to his guilt over and over again. It was as if killing his wife was like killing any remaining vestige of conscience within himself. In TCOA, there is some funny and ironic taunts that Montresor presented Fortunado with such as one of the most memorable lines of the story, given by Montresor in response to Fortunato saying, "I will not die of a cough."
The old man, who is deceived by the narrator, and whom also trusts the narrator with his life, never suspects the him of this gruesome act. To the narrator, who is intrigued by the old mans evil eye, insanity foreshadows the olds man’s death, and symbolizes insanity in the narrator, and blindness in the old man. The eye in Poe’s short story is perceived upon its negatives, reflecting the way many people of the time thought and observed things. Owen Meredith’s view on an eye is very much like how people think of an eye today; something beautiful. In todays world people understand an eye to be a gift, something that is used a lot, a open eye to success, a tool to help take a view on your life and finally can symbolize the presence of an individual in
He presents himself with only limited information about his motivations, and his ambition to finish off his master piece and careful manipulation of Fortunato indicates the care with which he has planned his execution. However, we again have a classic case of Poe's unreliable narrator, whose guilt and occasional irrationality prevents him from presenting himself truthfully to the reader. However, we can see that Montresor shows a particularly black sense of humor, with which he amuses both himself and the horrified reader as he leads Fortunato into his trap. He informs the audience of his intentions before he begins the story of his encounter with Fortunato, and Poe employs both verbal and dramatic irony to convey the darkness of the story. A very good example of black humor can be found at the very beginning of the story itself: Montresor’s had "vowed revenge" against Fortunato, but he decided to mask his real feelings by outwardly appearing friendly towards him.
In two of Poe’s stories, The Black Cat and The Cask of Amontilado, he writes of angry men who ultimately kill the ones who cause them trouble, then proceeding to wall them up behind stones and mortar. While Poe’s stories are filled with anger and rash actions, Doyle writes of how Sherlock Holmes calmly discusses his cases, solving them out with rational though. A big difference in Doyle’s and Poe’s writing styles, though, is the amount of emotion put into the stories written by either of them. Poe uses more emotion to attach the main character to the reader, to make the protagonists appear more real as well as keeping it in
These poems were written as dramatic monologues. This literary form is meant to show the reader the narrator’s most inner thoughts during a dramatic situation, therefore the reader can explore the abnormal psychology involved in the two acts of murder. Before the murders, both men are shown to be dangerously possessive of their women. In “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess there is only one point of view. This view is expressed throughout the poems and the reoccurring theme is murder as they both show the idea of men killing a lover.
The narrator in “Tell-Tale Heart” lost his composure after he murdered the old man, in contrast to when Rainsford murdered General Zaroff. After the narrator murders the old man and visitors come to the house, he still hears the heart of the old man beating. As he talks to the visitors, it seems to him that the heart beat gets louder and louder to the point where he loses self-control and admits to the deed. However, after Rainsford wins the most dangerous game he clearly keeps his serenity. Instead of showing any guilt, Rainsford actually seems to be more at peace after he pulls the trigger.
“A Cask of Amontillado” Villainy Essay Edgar Allen Poe acknowledges, “Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—does not spring from disease of thought, from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.” In Edgar Allen Poe’s, “A Cask of Amontillado,” craziness possesses a man to plot the killing of a man that has insulted him in a way the reader is unaware of. Montresor, the antagonist, loses his mind while luring Fortunado, the other main character, to his unknown death. Montresor, throughout the story, get crazier and crazier. At first, Montrosor smiles at Fortunado thinking about the way he is going to kill him. Fortunado takes the smile as Montresor being happy to see him.
Hamlet yells, “How now? A rat? dead for a ducat, dead!” (Act 3 scene iv, line 23) as he stabs whoever could be behind the curtains. Just because Hamlet killed Polonius “in a fit of madness,” (Act V, Scene ii, lines 236-250), does not mean that Hamlet is insane. Hamlet may have killed Polonius in a fit of rage, knowing that somebody, anybody, was spying on his private conversation.
The narrator speaks directly to the reader and opens the story by claiming that he is “dreadfully nervous” but not mad. He also maintains that he has sharpened senses due to his disease especially an abnormally acute hearing. He then tells a story to defend his plea of sanity by confessing to a murder of an old man - which basically contradicts and defeats his argument. He explains that his motivation to eradicate the old man’s existence is neither passion nor desire for the man’s possessions but rather the fear of the old man’s pale blue, vulture-like eye. He insists that he is not a madman for he carried out his scheme artfully like a criminal mastermind.