The narrator may have actually wanted to be able to express his caring side more openly but was not allowed to do so by the society. He had to suppress his love for human beings and in doing so, he transferred the same feelings to animals. Robert B. Ewen calls it ego defense mechanism, "whereby feelings or behaviors are transferred, usually unconsciously, from one object to another that is less threatening" (29)
The narrator is so used to being rejected by the society that when Pluto, the Black Cat, offers his unconditional love, the narrator becomes intensely jealous and possessive. In a fit of anger and on detecting a slight hint of withdrawal, the narrator goes on to injure Pluto, after "fanc[ying] that the cat avoided [his] presence" (851). And eventually kills it. Then a second cat appears. This cat becomes the object of narrator's affection initially as he declared that this "was the very creature of which I was in search" (854). But when the cat "became immediately a great favorite with my wife" (854), the narrator starts developing feelings of jealousy which leads him to contend that, "I soon found a dislike to it arising within me" (854) even though the cat exhibited "its evident fondness" for the narrator. For some odd reason, either because of jealousy or pure guilt, the narrator gets "disgusted and annoyed" with the cat to the extent that "these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred" (854). Why would he kill the second cat as well? The answer to this implicit question lies in the behavior of his wife. For one, she was showing greater affection to the cat and thus the narrator felt neglected, but even important than this was narrator's inability to express his sensitive side the way his wife could. While mentioning the missing eye of the cat, the narrator tells us that this physical trait "only endeared it to my wife, who... possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures" (855).
The attention paid by the wife to the cat turns into a major problem for the narrator who starts playing excessive attention to any references made by the wife to...
It is also a description of the symptoms a man that has fallen under the abuse of alcohol is showing, symptoms that often go to the schizophrenia and may cause him act against everything that we Humans call humanly and are confident that makes the difference. There are a few lights cast on traits and acts that make us not equal or worse than animals, they just reduce us
Both stories told of men who dared to escape their fate, whether it was inevitable death from a plague or the dire consequences of his action, these men seek means to remove themselves from their environment and distance themselves from their actions. Prince Prospero used his wealth as a shield, and he honestly thought he managed to bar Death from his gates. Death cannot be and will never be denied.
Their marriage and mutual love of animals makes this a situation that bespeaks long lasting happiness. One of the family pet is a black cat that is fairly large and the man's favorite. This cat is well liked, and unlike the disposition of cats that is aloof and independent, this cat follows his master wherever he goes, even out doors. The wife based on some superstitions has her misgivings
Edgar Allan Poe In the course of his short career as writer, Edgar Allan Poe wrote numerous literary pieces, a majority of which were compiled into books only after his death. Poe published only one novel, in 1838, titled "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" and many books of poetry, with the most popular being "The Raven and Other Poems," published in 1845. His chief source of income was, editing magazines
Tell-Tale Heart The Reflection of the Soul in Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" Edgar Allan Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" appeared a decade after Gogol's "Diary of a Madman" in Russia and twenty years before Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, whose protagonist essentially become the archetypal anti-hero of modern literature. Between the American and the Russian is the whole continent of Europe, and it stands to reason that while on both sides of the continent literary characters
" But whoops, from inside the wall that he had so carefully reconstructed to hide his evil deed, came a "cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell..." So what the
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