Floorboards In The Old Man's Room example essay topic

Edgar Allen Poe In each of Edgar Allen Poe's stories of murder and madness, he takes us inside the mind of the murderer from the time he begins until after the deed has been done. Poe gives us a point of view not common in works of horror and suspense: the killers. We read the thoughts and follow the actions of the killer as he plots and follows through with his victim's demise. All three of his stories are alike, especially "The Black Cat' and "The Tell-Tale Heart. ' However, I found that "The Cask of Amontillado' differ more than any of the other two from each other. While the murderers in "The Black Cat' and "The Tell-Tale Heart' are motivated by their own insanity, the character in "The Cask of Amontillado' is driven by pure, old-fashioned revenge and jealousy.

A couple main details I noticed about all three tales is that each story is told in first person, and all of the main characters are male. Also, in the end of each of these short stories all men turn out to be no better, if not much worse, than they already were. The "Tell-Tale Heart' begins with the murderer raving about his sanity, and that he commits the crime not because of lunacy but for his master's "Evil-Eye. ' The man describes the eye as if it is a separate entity from the old man, and if it weren't for the eye he would have nothing against his master.

The eye being attached to the old man is just an unfortunate detail. In the following quote the man describes his feelings towards the Evil-Eye and what he decided to do about it: "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees-very gradually-I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. ' (Poe 173) Night after night the man creeps to his masters door at midnight and slowly opens the door, with caution he prides himself so much for. He then opens his lantern and allows the light to fall upon his master's face and highlight the eye. He waits until the night the Evil Eye is open to commit his awful deed. On that night, he awakens his master, and the man waits at the door.

The old man sits up awake and alert that someone is in his room. The man then claims he hears his master's heart beating. As he listens it quickens in pace and escalates in volume. The heartbeat grows so loud that he becomes afraid a neighbor may hear it.

This portion of the story adds doubts to the narrator's sanity, because he is sure that everyone else is capable of hearing this booming heart beat. With fear that someone would hear this imagined noise, the man is finally ready to kill the old man, and he opens the lantern and lets the light fall onto the Evil Eye. Once he sees it, he is filled with such rage that he throws the old man on the ground and pushes the bed on top of him. The "heart beat, now smothered by the bed, slows until the old man is surely dead.

The murderer decided to hack the body into separate pieces and distribute them under the floorboards in the old man's room. Shortly after the disposal of the body, the police come knocking at the door inquiring about a shriek heard by neighbors. The man takes blame for it, and says his master is away when questioned. The police search the house and turn up nothing. The murderer is so sure of his work done with hiding the body that he invites the officers to chat in the room that has the body hidden below them. Once again, the man's sanity is questioned when he thinks he is hearing the heart beat again.

While he is sure the noise is incredibly around and he is raving and smashing stuff, this is all going on in his head. "It grew louder-louder-louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?' (Poe 177) Eventually the man stands up declaring his crime to the police, because he could no longer take the thunderous beating heart. The "Black Cat' begins with the narrator describing himself as a good-natured man, and his deep love for animals. He was fond of one in particular, a large, black cat named Pluto.

As the story moves on, the man becomes an alcoholic with a bad temperament and violent tendencies. He begins mistreating his wife and all the animals except for Pluto. Eventually his abusiveness turns to the cat, and he ends up cutting one of the cat's eyes out and later, hanging it. That night, the man's house catches on fire, and is forced to find another home. The man returns to the ruins of his former house and finds that one wall is left standing with an identical portrait of Pluto on the wall. The man is then haunted by what he had done to the poor feline.

To make good with the evil he had done, the man searches for a cat as similar as possible to Pluto. He finds one alike the former, except for a white patch on the cat. Over time the man eventually hates this cat too, and tries to resist urges to kill the cat. Also, the white patch on the cat's chest began to take shape into something that frightened the man very much.

"It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name-and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared – it was now, I say, the image of a hideous- of a ghastly thing-of the GALLOWS! ' (Poe 109) The man was sure this new cat existed only to seek out revenge for his fellow feline's murder. His anger grew towards a killing rage one day, and lifts an ax in the cellar to kill the cat. The wife, however, tries to stop the man, and in return he kills her. Promptly after killing his wife he begins to hide her remains in the cellar wall. After he finishes cleaning up the area, he begins to search for the cat with no avail.

He lets days pass, and begins to think he has frightened the cat so much he went away for good. Also, with the passing of days people begin to wonder about his missing wife. Police come by one day to search the house again, and the man boldly allows them to explore the house. When they reach the cellar and the police turn up nothing, the man begins to brag about the good construction of the house. Upon saying that he taps the wall with his cane, and this causes a cry from within the wall. The officers hear the cry to and immediately begin tearing apart the cellar wall.

Within the walls lay not only his decaying wife, but the "The Cask of Amontillado' involves two wine experts that run into each other at a carnival one night. One, Montresor, has a considerable grudge against the other, Fortunato, and has devised a plan to murder his fellow wine connoisseur. Montresor loathing of Fortunato is due to his own failures in loss in life, and Fortunato's great wealth and fame he has accumulated over the years. Montresor lures the already well intoxicated Fortunato in by claiming his has come across what he thinks is a rare wine, but can not be positive of its authenticity. Montresor says he will validate it by asking a not so well respected wine taster to see if he thinks the wine is the real thing. Fortunato, who is completely unaware of Montresor's grudge, falls quickly for the bait and says that the man is a fool, and insists that he goes and sees for himself.

Together the two go to Montresor's empty house, and down deep into the catacombs that make the wine cellar far below the house. When they finally reach the final room far below the ground, Montresor quickly chains the still-drunk Fortunato to the wall. Montresor returns to the doorway of the small room, and begins to wall it up. From there, Fortunato is buried alive, and Montresor leaves with the perfect crime.

There are many similar that can be found in all three of these short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. For instance, the way that the killers disposed of the bodies in each story is very similar. In all of the stories, the bodies of the victims were buried in some part of the home of each of the murderers. Also, in both of "The Tell-Tale Heart' and "The Cask of Amontillado' the killer's guilty consciences eventually caused some sort of confession of their crimes. The man in the first story was driven mad into confessing from an imaginary heart beat, and the man in the latter is left to believe his conscience is what caused him to write his story confessing his crime. Both men in "The Tell-Tale Heart' and "The Black Cat' were extremely confident in their job hiding the bodies, and almost bragging at their job at hiding the body.

However, in all three stories the men were punished in some way. The first two stories I described had the law punishing the two men. The final story I described the man was never caught by the authorities for his crime, but instead he had to deal with the weight from his guilty conscience.