The Black Cat And The House Of Usher

For once In my life, I actually enjoyed a reading more than the movie about it. The movie and the short story of The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe, differ immensely. However, it was necessary to make the movie different to add more interest to the intended audience. The short story and the movie of The Fall of the House of Usher are very different in three main aspects: the relationships between the characters, the interpretation of the two remaining Ushers, and the presentation and demise of the house itself.

Edgar Allan Poe has written many poems, novels, and short stories. Two of his most recognizable works are “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Raven”. Though both are similar in many ways, they also have differences. One way the similarities can be recognized are the theme and the way Poe writes. They also can be compared in the use of symbolism in both.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Black Cat immerses the reader into the mind of a murdering alcoholic. Poe himself suffered from alcoholism and often showed erratic behavior with violent outburst. Poe is famous for his American Gothic horror tales such as the Tell-Tale Heart and the Fall of the House of Usher. “The Black Cat is Poe’s second psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. He added a new element to aid in evoking the dark side of the narrator, and that is the supernatural world.” (Womack). Poe uses many of the American Gothic characteristics such as emotional intensity, superstition, extremes in violence, the focus on a certain object and foreshadowing lead the reader through a series of events that are horrifying

Edgar Allan Poe was a 19th century American writer who is best known for his poetries and short stories.Poe wrote in many genres;however, his most famous works were written in the mystery or horror genre.According to Robert Giordano,”Poe wrote quite a few gothic stories about murder, revenge, torture, the plague, being buried alive, and insanity” (Giordano).Many of his prominent works include “The Raven,”The Fall of the House of Usher,” and ”The Tell-tale Heart.” The spectacular work of Edgar Allan Poe would be commended and acknowledged throughout history.

Setting places the character and the action to a certain place so that the reader can visualize what is happening in the story. The setting is one of the most obvious similarities between these two stories is their settings. Dreary, dark, ominous houses are the settings for most of the action of both stories. “The Tell-Tale Heart”’s action occurs at midnight and the witching hour. “The Fall of the House of Usher”’s house is in disrepair and is almost disintegrating around the people who live there. Consequently, settings virtually always have implications on the story’s tone. The dark, dreary houses give the stories foreboding tones that add to the horror. Already Poe employs the same setting and tones in these stories that put chills down the reader's spines, but they also show the similitude in his writing style.

Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be the father of the short story by many. Over the course of his life, he wrote hundreds of short stories and poems. His writing style is unique and influenced by the tragedies that occurred over the course of his life. In fact, he is most well known for writing morbid stories and gruesome, dismal poems. Indeed his writing habits were heavily influenced by his life. His life was full of depression, angst, and woe. Many of the people he cared for fell victim to deadly plagues and diseases. To cope with this pain, Edgar Allan Poe sought comfort in the bottom of a bottle. In his times of depression he would drink heavily and become sick for days at a time.

Throughout all the short stories and poems wrote by Edgar Allan Poe, some connections can be made on the content. The Black Cat, and The Raven, are two narratives wrote by Poe, that unveil the themes and symbols he often uses in his work. Poe is on the mysterious side, but he is also taking the life he is given, and making his narratives raw and realist by some degree. Poe uses techniques that left him express his imagination through writing. There are many different ideas and questions rising from all his work. The Black Cat and The Raven, are two narratives that use similar themes and symbols that allow readers to receive a small connection of the madness inside of the narrators.

Although now seen as the father of the modern horror story, Edgar Allan Poe was previously viewed as a drunken failure. Within Poe’s writings much of his own life riddled with guilt, anxiety, alcohol, depression and death shines through resulting in works that appear unrelated yet once dissected prove similar. This is true for Poe’s works “The Raven” and “The Black Cat”. Poe’s examples of gothic fiction share the use of the color black and a rapid digression of the narrator 's sanity while seemingly unveiling Poe’s internal pain. Despite these similarities, Poe’s works also differ immensely. “The Black Cat” focuses around death while “The Raven” is fixed around discovering the reasoning for a bird 's arrival. Moreover, gothic themes seen within “The Raven” do not necessarily remain constant when compared to “The Black Cat”.

Edgar Allen Poe was one of the most influential and important writers of the nineteenth century. He was the first writer to try to make a living only writing. One of Poe’s most popular short stories, “The Black Cat”, is considered horror fiction or gothic fiction which Poe is known for in his books and short stories because it was a popular genre during his days. In Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”, Poe uses a horror fiction genre, a mentally deranged and evil narrator/character, and symbolism of death to make a thrilling story with tons of suspense, drama, and gruesome detail.

As a master of short stories of horror, Edgar Allan Poe is knowledgeable, learned and imaginative. He could skillfully manipulate the words in his literary works to create everything people can think of. The masterful use of the symbols, objects intensify the readers’ nerve as the typical elements of horror in Poe’s short stories, and therefore it is also a feature which makes Poe 's stories different from other writers.

The setting in both of the stories involves a house. In “The Black Cat” the story is written in the narrator jail cell. The way the narrator explain both of his houses made it seem like he was trapped. In the story I felt that there was a lot of the description towards the walls. When the narrator first house caught on fire. The only thing that was left standing from the house was a wall. “The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed” (page 521). The wall left standing had an image that resembled a gigantic cat on it. In the narrator 's new house the second cat live burial was behind a brick wall where he also buried his wife. In the “The Fall of the House of Usher” the description is more focused on the appearance of the house. The narrator goes more into a description of the outside and the inside of the mansion. “I look upon the scene before me upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain upon the bleak walls upon the vacant eye like windows upon a few rank sedges

Despite his many poems and short stories there are two which stand out the most due to their similarity. The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat have many things in common, but they also have differences. Both stories have insanity filled characters with murderous intentions ( one with an old man and the other with a cat) . “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Norton 691). This sentence in The tell-Tale heart gives the whole ending away. This is one of the major differences between both stories. The reader already knows what's going to happen in the end of the Tell-Tale Heart in the beginning of the story ; while in The Black Cat the reader doesn’t find out well till the end. The ending was made crystal clear, Poe wrote it that way to captivate the reader and make them wonder why did the narrator chose to do this? The anticipation to find out makes the read more suspenseful. The Black Cat is

John Green once said, “It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see,” a fitting quote to define the works of American author, Edgar Allen Poe, known for his short stories written in the 1800’s. Famous works include “The Black Cat”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and “Berenice" before his untimely death in 1849. Often ridiculed for his absurd stories, Poe was fueled by his many losses in his childhood, including his mother and wife, and alcoholism. Many of his stories are that of the horror genre and often uses an unreliable character. Just as some of his most famous characters, Poe was seen as a mentally unstable man who was burdened by the hardships of his life. Through unreliable narratives, Poe emphasizes fear in the thin line

Edgar Allan Poe is a much known author. He is known for writing dark and mysterious stories and poems. “His imaginative storytelling led to literary innovations, earning him the nickname "Father of the Detective Story" (Edgar Allan Poe Biography.com). When writing stories he wanted the readers to have that one emotion or feeling when reading his writing. Poe has very many stories he is known for two of those short stories being; “The Oval Portrait” and “The Cask of Amontillado”.

Edgar Allan Poe created many short stories that reflected the horrors and sadness in his life. Two short stories that were influenced by his past are “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado”. Edgar Allan Poe lived a very depressing and sad life which influenced him to create a unique voice in his writings. While Edgar Allan Poe was little both of his parents died leaving Poe with a foster father to take care of him. He was able to attend college for only a couple years then had to drop out due to debt. His father was displeased and refused to pay his debts due to Poe's alcoholism and gambling problem. Many loved ones died in Edgar Allan Poe’s life contributing and helping create his dark stories. Poe struggled with depression and resulted into alcohol which is also seen in some of his writings. Edgar Allan Poe creates a unique voice in his short story by using setting to develop the conflict, common theme, and characterization.