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Compare And Contrast Tell Tale Heart And Ambush

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People always look back in the past. The Tell-Tale Heart and Ambush are two stories that look back on their main character’s actions. The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Ellen Poe, is a riveting story in which the protagonist talks about how he kills a man. In Ambush, by Tim O’Brien, the main character also talks about how he kills a man, but he is more regretful about it. The tone and mood of the two stories are similar and it affects the way the readers understand similarly. At the beginning of The Tell-Tale Heart, the protagonist talks about his recent murder of an old man: “…observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” (Poe 22) This has already set the mood to very disturbing and creepy. Not even two pages later, the protagonist set the mood to increasingly more disturbing with his calmness about killing someone he loves: “I loved the old man. . . I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” (Poe 23) The readers are now aware of how disturbing the mood is with this insane protagonist. The story takes a very nasty turn when the protagonist talks about the aftermath of the murder: “The night waned, and I worked …show more content…

While on guard duty, the main character sees an enemy soldier but he starts to get very suspenseful and nervous, “-imagination, but there was also the reality of what was happening in my stomach… I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour.” (O’Brien 62), him feeling his stomach wanting to vomit is a sign of suspense. The main character starts to get fearful and isn’t thinking straight, “I was terrified. There were no thoughts about killing. The grenade was to make him go away—just evaporate.” (O’Brien 62), the main character’s rash decision making was all because of how suspenseful it is for the main

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