In 'The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl' by Ray Bradbury and 'The Tell Tale Heart' by Edgar Allen Poe both authors have to convince the reader that the main character is mad. How do they do that? Which portrayal is more effective? Why?

  In ‘ Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl ‘ the narration is third person with stream of consciousness. This allows you to feel as thought you are watching the events unfold and that you become omnipotent. The narration method of  ‘ The Tell Tale Heart’ is more effective and convinces the reader of the main characters madness because you can tell the characters most inner thoughts and feelings as he addresses you unlike ‘ Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl ‘ which only shows you the actions and doesn’t give you an insight to his mental well being.

  In ‘Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl ‘ the characters attitude to the dead body and crime is one of calmness, although he was still conscious that his actions could be traced via his fingertips on the objects around the house. One example of this is “ He looked at his fingers and he looked at the large room around him” showing his consciousness. The character then goes through these stages, he becomes frantic, starts having flashbacks and becomes frantic some examples of this are “The fingerprints were everywhere, everywhere!” and “ Yes touch it handle it” which shows that he is going mad because people would not be fussed what they touched they would just want to get away. The character has little short conversations with himself which reflect his madness because in every little conversation he reminds himself of the finger prints as if it was an obsession one example of this is “Yes fetch it Handle it Touch it. He did”. The character also has flashbacks of conversations with his victim it reveals his true character because you find out that he is not some all mighty killer and deep down inside that he is now regretting his actions and trying to cover up all sources that lead to him then the franticness occurs when he tries to get rid of his finger prints which is a near impossible task. The use of italics to emphasise his obsessiveness is used I think to make them stand out so that you can see the madness developing because he has a tendency to put words to do with fingers in italics. The writer list the verbs separated by commas once again shows the characters flashback to what he had done and what his finger prints might be on and it shows madness when he says “ The wall! “ because you just don’t suddenly shout out the wall and paranoia is setting in. The use of repition once again emphasises his franticness because he often repeats words to remind himself that he has touched something and left his fingerprints there he often repeats “ Handle it, Go Ahead, Pick it up.” The character then start to have progressively more illogical actions, he starts cleaning inanimate objects such as the wall and the stair banister which again shows his madness because he becomes obsessed with fingerprints. The last sentence ‘ In triumph’ is ironic because how could it all be in triumph because he has done all that hard work of cleaning and still got caught. In ‘ the Tell Tale Heart’ the character often addresses the read directly which is a good idea because it shows his progressive madness and gives you an incite into his thoughts and feelings, unlike in ‘Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ where the reader is rarely addressed, Also in ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ the characters actions are less frantic and are more cold and calculate and more closely planned even thought he is mad, unlike the characters actions in ‘ Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ which are more frantic and show more signs of madness. The characters attitude to the crime in ‘ The Tell Tale Heart’ first of all is one of triumph, which then turns to paranoia when the heart beat sound starts. The heart beat sound is yet another sign of madness. In ‘ Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ the character is unease with what he has done from the start and is a frail character constantly throught the story and is found a trembling wreck in the attic. The use of repition in ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ is I think to show how careful the characters actions were one example of this is “ I moved in slowly – very, very slowly” unlike in ‘The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl” where repition is used throught to emphasis the characters frantic motions and obsession with his actions and what he had touched. There is only one use of italics in ‘ The Tell Tale Heart ‘ is where he says “ All in Vain “ this suggested that the man couldn’t have done anything because death was coming for him, also that if he had it would have been all in vain. In contrast in ‘ The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ there are lots of use of italics to emphasise the characters frantic actions and to refer to is obsession with finger prints and touching things one example of this is “Feel of it”. In ‘ The Tell Tale Heart’ there are a lot of rhetorical questions which show the characters developing signs of madness this also the same in ‘ Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ both characters ask rhetorical both of their question are very frantic which is another symptom of madness it seems. In ‘ The Tell Tale Heart’ there is a lot of direct speech between the policeman and the character until he finally cracks because the sound of the so called heart beat which may be in his head finally gets to him there is also a lot of repition and exclamation marks in the final speech. Unlike ‘ Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl ‘ were there is no final speech as such just one word ‘ Done’ to say that it was all over but it wasn’t because he had been caught and all his work was in vain. ‘The Tell Tale Heart ‘ uses a lot of exclamation marks at the beginning to show his developing signs of madness then lots at the end to show that he has finally gone mad unlike ‘Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ which doesn’t use exclamation marks to suggest the character is calm and collected but he is far from that. ‘Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ uses lots of short sharp sentences so that you take it all in unlike the ‘Tell Tale Heart’ which is just one big dialogue between the character and his mind without giving you time to take it all in. The ‘‘Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ story gives the better portrayal of the madman because you get to see the actions of a madman which would be very frantic if you had killed someone, also it shows you that he has an obsession and is found a quivering wreck in the attic after getting so worried.