Comparing Tell-Tale Heart And The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar will be were very influential writers of the 1800s. Paul was born in the United States and wrote the Tell-Tale Heart in 1843, which displays a number of Gothic elements found in many of his stories. Oscar Wilde was born in Great Britain and he wrote one of his most famous books in 1890 called The Picture of Dorian Gray, this book is full of very interesting characters whose lives are controlled by their feelings. Both of these great authors wrote about people with a sick mental disorder who have a very unique impact on society. Both Tell-Tale Heart and The Picture of Dorian Gray use symbols along with narrator’s voice to show what it is like for these people and to show a horrible impact these people have on society.
The main character or protagonist of the Tell-Tale Heart is a murderer who is under the belief that he is controlled by an eye. It seems is that this man has what is known

Unlike Tell-Tale Heart, the protagonist and the narrator are not the same character in The Picture of Dorian Gray. In Oscar Wilde’s story the protagonist is a young, attractive, wealthy man by the name of Dorian Gray. Dorian is portrayed this way at the beginning of the story, but takes a drastic change for the worst turning into a horrible character who is up obsessed with beauty. Dorian Gray is extremely narcissistic and is very keen on his own personal appearance. Dorian seems to be so obsessed with himself that he really has no true value of morals or what is right. Just as Edgar Allen Poe did, Wilde uses symbols and narrator’s voice to convey the madness of these characters and the effect that they have on society.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde writes in third-person, unlike Poe. The narcissism of Dorian is first evident in the story when Lord Henry first sees the paining and expresses to Basil Hallward that Dorian “is Narcissus… (Wilde 2).” This excerpt shows that Dorian’s narcissism is evident without even having to meet him