Edgar Allan Poe Works Essay

Edgar Allan Poe said â€Å"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.† Throughout his short stories; â€Å"The Black Cat† and â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart†, Poe sets up his characters to subconsciously reveal their insanity. Often using syntax clues and patterns, Poe shows the madness of the narrators of his short stories. The constant theme of denial of insanity further convinces the reader of the character’s psychosis. Characters themselves often prove they are not in touch with reality through their actions. Through syntax, denial of insanity, and character’s actions, Poe allows his narrators in â€Å"The Black Cat† and â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† to reveal their own insanity. Sentence structure is used consistently by Poe in his short stories to aid in his character’s revealing their own insanity. When the narrator in â€Å"The Black Cat† is listing the pets he and his wife have, the last one he lists is a c at. â€Å"We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.† (Poe H/O) The cat is italicized, causing the reader to wonder why the emphasis is so important. As the reader progresses through the rest of the story, it becomes evident that the cat is of a strong significance to the narrator. In â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart†, the narrator has some sort of disease that heightens his senses. He also has a type of obsessive compulsive disorder, causing him to fixate on his roommate’s clouded eye. In the beginning of the story, he says â€Å"I think it was his eye!-yes, it was this!† (Poe H/O) The short choppy thought pattern here shows the mind of the narrator is less than sound. While in â€Å"The Black Cat†, the syntax proof is less obvious, though foreshadowing the story by placing such a subtle hint as to how much the cat really matters in the rest of the story, the grammatical clues in â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† are much more obvious because they pertain more to the thoughts of the narrator. Listening and paying attention t o how speakers and narrators in talk in any text are vital in understanding their character. By noting how Poe uses grammar and context clues, readers can more deeply understand the mind of the narrator. Syntax isn’t the only way Poe manipulates his narrators to show their own madness. The constant theme of denial of insanity further convinces the reader of the characters’ senselessness. Poe, in â€Å"The Black Cat† writes â€Å"Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad I am not – and surely do I not dream.†(H/O). Here, the narrator of â€Å"The Black Cat† states that it is possible for his actions and thought process to be interpreted as mad, still in his mind, he is not mad at all. By denying his insanity, the narrator creates a suspicion in the reader, making them question the integrity of his mind. The narrator of â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† is more adamant about repeating the fact that he is not insane. â€Å"†¦will you say that I am mad?†¦I have heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?† (Poe H/O) The narrator obviously worries about the fact that people may see him as a lunatic. The reader can infer that by denying his lack of sanity, and clinging to the hope that he may in fact have a sound mind; the narrator has lost all sense of reality, and cannot be trusted. Both of these stories have similar narrators in the sense that they may have once been sane, and a traumatic event has pushed them over the edge into the depths of derangement. While the above points may be valid and prove a point, nothing really shows who someone is more than what he or she may do. The character’s actions in multiple short stories by Poe show that they are not in touch with reality. The short story â€Å"The Black Cat† may have the best example of them all. When the narrator of this tale is hanging his precious, beloved cat, Pluto, he is well aware of his actions, and yet, he cannot stop himself from performing this murderous deed. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; – hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; – hung it because I knew that it had loved be, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense; – hung it because I knew that in so doing, I was committing a sin – a deadly sin that would so jeopardise my immortal soul as to place it – if such a thing were possible – even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. (Poe H/O)