‘The dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to a man’s perspective of a vibrant and interesting painting that has caught his eye.
‘Fled in extreme terror at my approach’ is a quote taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It conveys the cat’s feelings towards its master, since he cut one of its eyes from its socket.
After reviewing this subsection on fear, I concluded that ‘The Black Cat’ illustrates these experiences with a more brutal and aggressive edge.
The three short stories all portray a rather dark and morbid side to the mind, and human nature.
‘I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever’ is taken from the story ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It refers to a servant’s ultimatum to himself that he will rid himself of the burden of having to see the ‘evil eye’ on a regular basis.
‘He would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the painter’s wife, who is subjected to being nothing more than a lifeless object, imprisoned within the very wall of her own home.
‘The darkest and most evil of thoughts’ is a quote taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It shows reference to a man’s hysteria towards his pets and how the dark side of his mind ticks.
Although these three stories all convey a dark side to the human mind in different styles and mannerisms, they all contain the necessary material and references to dark actions and mind over body.
The stories that I have analysed all contain images and figures of suffering and chaos, but in rather different forms.
‘I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him’ is quote taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It conveys imagery of the servant dragging his master from his bed in the dead of night, and attempting to smother him.
‘Who so loved him, yet who daily grew more dispirited and weak’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It gives references to the painter’s young wife, who is obedient yet is crying out to her husband to see that he is slowly making her perish.
‘Grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket’ is taken from the story ‘The Black Cat’. It refers t the cruelty that a pet has to endure from its alcoholic owner.
The three stories all convey references of suffering and chaos. But, ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ and ‘The Black Cat’ portray this action as a more physical process.
The three short horror stories contain references and cause infliction of sheer terror, one of the forms of acute fear.
‘Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold’ is a quote taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It refers to the man servant’s reaction when his master’s ‘evil eye’ falls upon him.
‘She was dead!’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It conveys the astonishment of the painter when he finds that his wife is dead.
‘The fury of a demon instantly possessed me’ is taken from the story ‘The Black Cat’. It refers to the characters state of mind when he has consumed too much alcohol.
The stories convey sheer terror as an instantaneous reaction which has an effect on your mental well being. However, ‘The Black Cat’ portrays a more fearful atmosphere, based on satanic references, such as ‘demon’.
The short horror stories by Poe all convey irrational foreboding, such as premonitions.
‘He had been lying awake, ever since the first slight noise’ is taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It refers to the night the man servant enters his master’s bedroom. The servant makes a slight noise and awakes his master, who could not see before him as the darkness lay still and awake.
‘I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the character’s reaction when he sees the painting of the young woman for the first time.
‘It was a black cat – a very large one – fully as large as Pluto’ is taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It refers to the male character’s first impressions upon sight of a cat which resembles the animal he owned prior to that.
The topic of irrational foreboding is presented more alternatively in ‘The Black Cat’. The story contains comparative techniques, unlike ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ and ‘The Oval Portrait’.
The three short horror stories all convey different forms of physical pain.
‘He shrieked once – once only’ is taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It pinpoints the precise moment that the man servant struck down his employee.
‘My desperately wounded condition’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the wounded male character, who enters the chateau, which is the home of the painting. He is seeking refuge and recuperation.
‘I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree’ is taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It refers to the male characters perverse desire of making his pet cat suffer for tormenting him.
‘The Tell Tale Heart’ shows pain as an emotional and physical process. ‘The Oval Portrait’ shows pain as an injury, where as ‘The Black Cat’ portrays pain as a twisted substitute for revenge.
The three stories which I have analysed all contain elements related to the strange hold of the past on the present.
‘It is the beating of his hideous heart’ is a quote taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It refers to the guilt of the servant, who has just recently murdered his master. The effect of his actions is beginning to take a hold of him.
‘Turning to the number which designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and quaint words’ is taken from the story ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the injured characters acknowledgement of the painting, and the history behind it.
‘The Cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house’ is a quote taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It shows the character remembering the position where the dead cat lay.
‘The Oval Portrait’ contrasts with the other short stories because it does not involve a malicious killing of another living thing, and the sections within the story have no impact on the present.
Only two of the stories that I have studied contain encroachment of oppression on the enlightened modern era.
‘I there read the vague and quaint words’ is taken from the short story called ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the words written on the painting by the artist, which have an impact on the male character in the present day.
‘I approached and saw, as if graven in bas – relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat’ is taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It refers to the character pondering on the killing of his cat. This effects the present because a gigantic cat is imprinted upon his wall.
The stories that I have analysed all convey the expectations of enclosed and haunting settings.
‘Amid the dreadful silence of that old house’ is a quote taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It refers to the setting in which the servant kills his master. It is also told from the servant’s perspective.
‘Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multi form armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern painting in frames of rich golden arabesque’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the injured male’s first impressions of the chateau.
‘The cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit’ is taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It refers to the creepy basement of the male characters home. This is the setting where he kills his wife, and then conceals her corpse within the walls.
‘The Oval Portrait’ has a more majestic setting than the other two stories. ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ and ‘The Black Cat’ contain settings which are typical of the horror genre.
The stories which I have studied by Edgar Allan Poe convey images of ruin and/or decay in some shape or form.
‘Placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim’ is a quote taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It contains reference to the killer, who places and sits on a chair upon the floorboards, of which beneath contains the decaying corpse of his master.
‘The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair, melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the background of the whole’ is taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the painting, and how it had aged over time.
‘The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators’ is a quote taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It refers to the decaying of the wife’s corpse, which was concealed within the cellar.
‘The Tell Tale Heart’ and ‘The Black Cat’ portray decay and ruin using the theme of murder. ‘The Oval Portrait’ portrays decay and ruin using the passage of time.
The topic of imprisonment, cruelty and/or persecution is conveyed in different forms over the three stories.
‘Beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim’ is a quote taken from ‘The Tell Tale Heart’. It refers to unjust killing of an elderly man, who had his corpse dismembered and buried under floorboards of his own home.
‘My desperately wounded condition’ is a quote taken from ‘The Oval Portrait’. It refers to the injury sustained by the character, who seeks refuge in the chateau.
‘I had walled the monster up within the tomb’ is taken from ‘The Black Cat’. It refers to the male character’s horror at seeing that he had imprisoned his pet within the walls of his cellar.
Again, ‘The Oval Portrait’ contains much more mild references to cruelty, whereas the other two stories contain persecution inflicted upon others.
Overall, the three stories are generally similar because they all conform to the genres of horror and gothic horror. All three stories, however, have a different effect upon the reader.
‘The Tell Tale Heart’ portrays murder as a slow and planned process, carefully conducted and precise.
‘The Oval Portrait’ affects the reader because it presents death as story, and an almost supernatural process.
‘The Black Cat’ follows a male character, who when consuming alcohol, becomes aggressive and deranged. Enough so to kill his wife and pet.
‘The Tell Tale Heart’ and ‘The Black Cat’ are both told from the perspective of the murderers themselves. However, ‘The Oval Portrait’ is told firstly from a modern day perspective, but then is narrated by an unknown character, who talks of events from the past.
