Tell Tale Heart The Murderer example essay topic

Compare and contrast 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'A Confession Found in a Prison in the Time of Charles the Second' I am going to compare and contrast 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allen Poe and 'A Confession Found in a Prison in the Time of Charles the Second' by Charles Dickens. I will look at the way in which both authors create suspense in the stories, and give a personal opinion about them. The title 'A Tell-Tale Heart' is a suitable title because the story tells a tale of a heart. It is the beating of the old man's heart that drives the murderer insane. The title of 'Confession' gives much of the story away. We know from the title that someone is confessing to a serious crime because he is in prison.

We also know that it is set in the time of Charles the Second. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' just tells us that it is a story of a heart which gives away a secret, whereas 'Confession' tells us a lot more. The genre of both stories is horror, with a murder being committed. We know little about the setting of 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. We assume that it was set at the time it was written, which was the early nineteenth century.

All we know is that it takes place in an old man's bedroom. 'Confession' is set in the late seventeenth century near London, during the reign of Charles the Second. Both stories are written in the first person, which brings us close to the narrators' minds, as the narrator speaks directly to the reader. The murderer in 'The Tell-Tale Heart's tates that he is nervous, but insists that he is not mad: "Very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am: but why will you say that I am mad?" He is not greedy, as he does not want the victim's money: "For his gold I had no desire", and he tries to be brave throughout the story. In 'Confession' the narrator describes himself in a different way.

He tells us he is not as nice, handsome or as easy to get on with as his brother. He is honest about himself, and tells us that he did not care about his brother's illness. "This circumstance gave me slight or no pain". At the very beginning we start to dislike the murderer as he starts to describe himself.

The two stories have many similarities. The victims of the murders, however, were different. One was a very old man, and the other was a young child. The murderers both disliked their victims' eyes, which play an important part in the two stories. In 'The Tell-Tale Heart' the old man's eye fascinated the murderer, and he was obsessed with it. He could not stop looking at it: "It was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye", and his obsession eventually led him to commit murder.

The murderer in 'Confession' did not like the boy's stare, because it reminded him of the boy's mother, who had also had an evil glare: "Her fixed and steady look comes back upon me now". In 'Confession', what pushed the man to murder the child was that when the boy looked up at him the murderer could see his dead mother "His mother's ghost was looking from his eyes". He came to realise that it was not so much the boy that he was obsessed with, but his dead mother, and the fact that he saw her in the boy: "founded on close resemblance of feature and expression". In 'The Tell-Tale Heart', the narrator refers to heaven and hell at the start of the story. "I heard all things in heaven and in the earth" and "I heard many things in hell". This could tell us that the narrator understands the terror that his victim is experiencing.

In 'The Tell-Tale Heart' the murderer crushes his victim, and buries him under the floorboards so that no one will find him. In 'Confession' the murderer also buries the body, but this time on a loose patch of soil, so that no one will see any difference:" The traces of my spade were less likely to attract attention". Tension rises gradually in 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. The story begins on a fairly emotional note:" True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous... ". , but then the tone becomes factual, as the narrator explains the sequence of events. The mood then becomes quite chilling, as we are taken through the events leading up to the old man's death. We know fairly early on what is going to happen: "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man".

There will be no surprise ending, but the tension is built up as we are taken through the crime step by step, and later as we wonder how the murderer is going to be found out. The peak of tension is when he says "but the beating grew louder, louder". Repetition is also used here, to add to the drama. The tension starts to fall when the murder is complete: "His eye would trouble me no more". In 'Confession' the tension also rises when the narrator decides that murder is the only option: "I can scarcely fix the date when the feeling first came". The peak of tension is reached when the narrator feels that his crime is being witnessed by the whole of nature:" There were eyes in everything".

Again the tension falls when the murder is complete. .".. with his cheek resting upon his little hand". The author again builds the tension as we know that the murderer is somehow going to be found out. The arrival of the bloodhounds is the first sign of how this will happen. Two complex sentences are used - the first sentence is divided into a series of short phrases, whilst the second is divided into two phrases which are compound sentences in their own right. The effect is that the reader feels breathless, and in turn this builds the tension.

The direct speech makes the arrival of the two men leading to the confession both realistic and tense:" They scent some prey". The author of "The Tell-Tale Heart" also builds suspense by the use of repetition: "stealthily, stealthily" and "wide, wide open". A simile is used - "like the thread of a spider", to show that the thin ray of light seems so delicate, just like a spider's web, but is in fact strong and deadly. Death is written with a capital letter for emphasis, and personification is used here, as death is seen to follow his victim, as a person would: "Death had stalked with his black shadow before him."..

Rhetorical questions such as "For what had I to fear?" and twenty-five exclamation marks are used in the last twelve lines. : "O God! Again! Hark!" The narrator becomes hysterical, leading us to the climax.

A similar pattern appears in 'Confession'. The language is quite subdued, as the narrator tells the story, then direct speech is used, towards the end, to make the climax more dramatic: "In Heaven's name, move!" A rhetorical question is also used "What more have I to tell?" then the narrator answers his own question, and ends on a calm note: "and that I die tomorrow". Time is a major theme in both stories. The passage of time and fate, or being unable to stop a sequence of events, are important themes.

Other themes are the study of terror, guilt, danger and the effect of a guilty conscience. In both stories we feel that we are given an understanding of the power of the subconscious. Both murderers are very patient - "I had waited a long time, very patiently" (The Tell-Tale Heart) and "I waited from noon till nightfall" (Confession). Both murderers feel glad and relieved when the murder is complete. They feel pleased with themselves and not at all worried. In 'The Tell-Tale Heart', when the police arrive, the murderer is glad.

It has been all too easy so far. He is ready for a challenge. "I smiled, for what had I now to fear?" In 'Confession' when the police arrive, he feels tense: "I felt that I could not bear to be out of sight of the place". The psychological state of the characters develops throughout the stories. Both characters change - at first both murderers are confident about the murder and proud of the way they have covered up the crime, then gradually they show feelings of guilt.

In 'The Tell-Tale Heart', whose heart is beating at the end? As the narrator seems to be the only one to hear it, it could be his own heart beating, showing his guilty conscience: "It grew louder - louder - louder!" The narrator starts by insisting that he is not mad, and is very cunning and proud of how he carefully hid the evidence. He becomes more and more agitated as his guilty conscience gets the better of him. In 'Confession' the character gradually becomes more and more cunning. We see him becoming obsessed with the idea of killing the child. After the murder, he is tormented with guilt and is unable to sleep: "Every dream had a whole night's suffering of its own".

He becomes more agitated, and then calms down as he accepts his punishment: ... and that I die tomorrow". I did not find 'The Tell-Tale Heart' very realistic at first, because the narrator acts very strangely, and kills a man because of his eye, but as the story goes on, we can understand his feelings of guilt. The murderer in 'Confession' also acts quite strangely, killing a child because he did not like his mother - but the description of his conscience is very realistic. 'Confession' has more detail in it, which I liked, but I enjoyed 'The Tell-Tale Heart' because I thought it was more exciting, and the tension was built up very well. I liked the events before the murder, and the way the murderer was forced to confess, with the sound of the beating heart showing how a person can be destroyed by his guilty conscience.