The similarities and differences between ways in which murder is depicted in "The Tell-Tale Hearts", "The Black Cat" and "Call It Madness" "Buried the axe in her brain". Very graphic depiction of death appears in all 3 of the stories

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Compare and contrast the similarities and differences between ways in which murder is depicted in “The Tell-Tale Hearts”, “The Black Cat” and “Call It Madness”

“Buried the axe in her brain”. Very graphic depiction of death appears in all 3 of the stories, “The Tell-Tale Hearts”, “The Black Cat” and “Call It Madness”.

There are many similarities between all 3 stories and the way they portray death, there are also many differences between the Edgar Allen Poe stories and the Maupassant story.

The 2 authors have different styles both describing death and murder in there own ways.

The black cat is a story written by Edgar Allen Poe. The narrator describes himself as a caring person when he was a young man, “my tenderness of heart”. Poe creates the character in this way so early on so that later on in the story the reader feels sorry for the murderer even though he has committed a crime. However this is not successful because of how evil the murder is.

During the story the narrator describes his love for animals deteriorating into hatred this then leads to the murder of his first car Pluto. The murderer describes a lot of emotion towards his killing of Pluto, ‘who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not’, in an attempt to tell the audience his reasons for murder he explains that he killed Pluto because he knows it was the wrong thing to do.

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The cat is killed in a blunt and brutal way but with heartbreak and ‘the bitterness remorse’. Poe purposely uses long sentences and plenty of description to make the reader realise how upset and heartbroken the murderer is about the death of his cat.

The protagonist describes misery and unhappiness in his life due to drinking. After a drunken night he finds the perfect replacement for Pluto. Death is now constantly on the murderers mind, ‘I longed to destroy it with a blow’, Poe shows the murderers fantasy as quiet brutal but and blunt and to the point.

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