Fear In The Tell-Tale Heart And The Masque Of Red Death

The same cat thought to be dead then sells out the man to the police for killing his wife by drawing the police to the location in which his Wife was buried. This world is unnatural. For instance, when the man’s house

Edgar Allan Poe Living with fear in every corner, waiting for death in every hall, Poe experiences all of it and only had one way to express himself; and that was through his writing. Fear, something that can be helpful to stop the human mind from making a life changing decision. Fear is helpful because it helps restraint us from the bad. Fear is harmful as well because it can cause the body to be so scared it can cause the person to be paranoid.¨The Tell-Tale Heart,¨ and ¨The Masque of Red Death¨ are stories of Poe´s, all show fear with symbols, irony and figurative language.

All of the main characters in Poe’s stories are exposed to fear and handle it differently. In the texts by Edgar Allan Poe, the symbols, irony, and imagery all display how fear distorts the narrator's mind and the results of that fear. Poe uses symbolism to represent how fear can distort the mind and the results of such fear. For example, in the “Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator obsesses over the eye to show how fear can distort the mind: “It was open-wide, wide open-

The man ends up killing his wife instead of the cat and promptly buries her in the basement wall. The cat, who jumped into the wall, starts to howl when the police arrive and gives the man away. The theme in both stories is that of good versus evil. Evil lurks in the hearts of all, and sometimes people act upon it. The author develops this theme by using first person narration and symbolism.

In the “Tell Tale Heart” the narrator kills the man that (who he loved) he worked for. He inequitably killed him because he dislikes the old man’s bad eye. The narrator insists the eye gives him chills and on the eight night of watching him he killed the man. The narrator is unreliable because he is murder and he stores the body under the floor board, and there are other places he could have put it. There is also an unreliable narrator in the story “The Black Cat” he inevitably killed his wife and injured his cat.

The Dangerous Repercussions of Fear Fear is a sense that can improve daily life. If you are in a dark neighborhood with run-down buildings, fear is what stops you from moving forward. Fear makes the senses more acute and restrains you from making irrational decisions. However, fear can also do the exact opposite, clouding rational thoughts and causing paranoia. Fear can be extremely dangerous to the mind in the right circumstances.

The story continues with an event that is unfortunately far more terrible and unexpected than the previous events. The narrator allows his increasing anger towards the second black cat to lead him to killing his wife. His temper and hatred that began with the second black cat eventually ended up impacted him and his wife. The narrator states, “I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan” (Poe 5).

Everyone must know that fear has its negative effects, but it also has its positive effects on humans. Fear can help you to be more aware and prevents harm to you and others around you since you are more cautious. However, on the other side of the spectrum, fear can bring obsession such as losing control of yourself to focus on certain people or objects, and can bring poignancy to your life. Both aspects of fear are shown in Edgar Allan Poe’s renown stories, ¨The Tell-Tale Heart,¨ ¨The Pit and the Pendulum,¨ and ¨The Masque of Red Death,¨ where all the main characters are introduced to fear, but all approach it differently.

This short story contains an important theme that differs from “The Cask of Amontillado”. Human nature is a muted balance of light and dark or good and evil. Often this unstable balance is maintained; except, when there is a transition, for any reason, the dark or evil can consume the mind. In this situation it is the evil eye of the old man that sends the narrator into a demented state. It is his irrational fear that eventually summons his evil side to commit an unnecessary murder.

The Creature told Frankenstein, “The thought was madness; stirred the fiend within me- not I, but she [Justine Moritz], shall suffer; the murder I have committed because I am forever robbed of all that she could give me, shall atone… I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress”(Shelley 103). The Daemon is the cause of innocent Justine’s death. His placement of the picture caused Justine to be accused of murder even after she loved the helpless William.

In Poe’s Masque of the red death, Poe illustrates the stages of life and death. Each symbol that Poe presents in his short story coincide with facets of life that are impossible to not experience. The read death itself, represents death as an aspect of life. In the story, Prince Prospero and those he saved lock themselves in his castle in order to prevent any sign of the Red Death (disease in this story) from affecting them. Someone dresses as a victim of the disease in a costume to stir attention, and as Prospero attacks the villain, he dies.