FREE ESSAY ON THE FORMULIAC NARRATORS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

THE FORMULIAC NARRATORS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

The respective narrators in Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat are
nameless characters around whom each story revolves. This is just as well, considering
the fact that the two narrators are almost interchangeable. Both narrators are thematic
symbols of the dark side of the human mind, which characterizes much of Poe's works of
horror. Each narrator moves through the action of his story virtually parallel to the
other, in his struggles with irrational fear, innate perversity and obsessive mental
fixations. Although Poe does insert a few added dramatic elements into the story of The
Black Cat, these elements pull the two characters closer together, instead of pushing
them apart. The reader can still easily see each man follow the same path through his
narration: he becomes consumed by his irrational fear, then obsesses over the object
which is the manifestation of this fear, which then pushes him to violence against those
associated with the obsession. Poe brings the reader full circle, using similar language
and actions within both plots, taking both narrators to the height of their madness and
seeming triumph, which in the end, is their undoing.
Both stories are narrated through the distorted eyes of a character that has been driven
to madness on some level or another. Each narrator begins his respective story by
defending his sanity through a twisted sort of rationalization. The narrator of The
Tell-Tale Heart addresses question of his sanity twice in the first paragraph: asking
once of the reader, "why will you say that I am mad?" and then again asking, "How, then,
am I mad (p277)?" His defense lies in "how healthily - how calmly [he] can tell [the
reader] the whole story." This is the same rationale that the narrator of The Black Cat
follows in his defense of his sanity.
Just as the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart presents his personal account of the events
in the story as healthy and calm, the Black Cat narrator presents "plainly, succinctly,
and without comment, a series of mere household events (p320)." Although he hopes for
"some intellect [that] may be found which will reduce [his] phantasm to the
common-place," the Black Cat narrator still states, "mad am I not (p320)." This element
of the supernatural is one in area where the two narrators diverge a bit. However, as the
two stories progress, this difference is used as a balancing agent that allows the
characterizations of the narrators to parallel one another within the action of their
respective stories.
Both narrators are on the verge of complete madness, waiting for that certain element to
push them over the edge. In the first part of the story, the reader learns that the Black
Cat narrator "was noted for the docility and humanity of [his] disposition (p320) in the
past. It is indicated that he was at one point, a seemingly happy man. There is no
indication of such a past in the life of the Tell-Tale narrator. His murderous intentions
"to take the life of the old man (p277)" are made clear in the second paragraph of the
story. Thus, Poe added elements of the supernatural to he plot of The Black Cat. It is
left unclear as to whether or not there are actually two cats in the story, or if the
original cat, which Poe so aptly named after the Roman god of the Underworld and judge of
the dead, Pluto, has come back from the dead in retribution. The narrator's wife's talk
about superstitions involving witches and the eerie gallow-shaped white marking on the
black cat are also elements that add to the narrator's eventual snap into madness, and
what push him to the same violence as the Tell-Tale narrator.
This violence is brought on by an irrational fear that both narrators posses. Both the
Tell-Tale and the Black Cat narrators refer to their states of mind as a sort of disease.
Their individual fears manifest themselves in sensual hypersensitivity, which lead them
to be affected in extreme ways by their surroundings. The Tell-Tale narrator says that
the "disease had sharpened [his] senses - not destroyed - not dulled them (p277)." His
sense of hearing being the most acute, he hears "all things in the heaven" and "many
things in hell (p277)." This aspect of his disease ends up being key in his eventual
undoing, when his crime is revealed in the final scene of the story.
The narrator of The Black Cat explains that his "disease grew upon (p321)" him. Although
he equates his disease and resulting "ill temper (p321)" with his abuse of alcohol, his
actions throughout the story are not those that are motivated solely by intoxication. If
anything, the alcohol simply amplifies this sensual hypersensitivity to the level of his
fellow narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart. The disease is based in their irrational fears of
things that not only pose no real threat to them, but that they admit to having once felt
love for.
The Tell-Tale narrator states, "I loved the old man (p277), when speaking of the same man
that he resolves to kill just six lines later. Similarly, the Black Cat narrator speaks
of the "self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart (p320)" of
those who have the opportunity to experience friendships with animals, when Pluto, the
animal that inspired such thought, will become the first recipient of his violent
madness, when he "deliberately cut[s] one of [the cat's] eyes from the socket (p322)."
Although both narrators' fears result in violence against living beings, their victims
are more personifications of the irrational fear that Poe uses as a thematic string in
his horror stories.
The Tell-Tale narrator admits, "it was not the old man who vexed [him], but [the old
man's] Evil Eye (p278)." At no point in the story is the reader given any logical basis
for the narrator's reaction to the eye. There is no rational or sane provocation for the
narrator's maniacal plan of murder. He admits that it is "impossible to say how first the
idea entered [his] brain; but once conceived, it haunted [him] day and night (p277)." The
narrator then goes on to relay how, each night, for seven nights, he would carefully
sneak into the room of the old man to wait for him to open his "vulture eye (p278)," thus
pushing the narrator to his climatic act of murder.
Just as the Tell-Tale narrator goes from a fixation on ridding himself of the eye, to a
period of waiting for his catalyst, the Black Cat narrator goes through the same process.
Both narrators spend a period of time waiting, while their aversion to their object of
obsession turns darker and more volatile, despite no rational provocation. The Black Cat
narrator explains that "with [his] aversion to this cat...its partiality for himself
seemed to increase (p325)" Instead of easing his ill will towards the animal, this leads
to his "absolute dread of the beast (p325)." This dread, when left to fester over time,
as over the seven days for the Tell-Tale narrator, gains intensity.
The Black Cat narrator explains his motivations through the concept of a sort of demon
possession, which he feels roots from a certain "PERVERSENESS" that is "one of the
primitive impulses of the human heart (p322)." Through the narrator's words, Poe presents
the dark side of the human mind, where you "do wrong for the wrong's sake only (p322)."
This perverse side of the human mind, in conjunction with their irrational fears is what
fuels the action of both stories. This horrible combination of the human mind is what is
behind the Black Cat narrator's actions when he "in cool blood," "slipped a noose about
[the cat's] neck and hung it to the limb of a tree (p322), " and when in "a rage more
than demoniacal," (p327) buried an axe in his wife's head because she tried to protect
the cat.
This combination of irrational fear and perversity is presented in the final moments
before the narrator kills the old man. Once again reminding the reader of his acute
senses, the Tell-Tale narrator thinks he hears the beating of the old man's heart. At
first, it "increased [his] fury, as the beating of the drum stimulates the soldier into
courage (p279)." Then, this sound in the silence of the house excites him to
"uncontrollable terror (p280)." This flow of emotion from anger, to exited terror, ends
with a perverse happiness, as the narrator "smile[s] gaily (p280)" once the old man is
dead. This perverse sense of satisfaction and triumph is what trips both narrators up in
the end of their stories, as their meticulous plans unravel before their eyes.
Both narrators are careful and calculating in their plans to dispose of, or to just
conceal the bodies of their murder victims. The Tell-Tale narrator "could scarcely
contain [his] feelings of triumph (p278)" after the murder of the old man. He then goes
on to gloat of how he first "dismembered the corpse," then hid its pieces under the floor
planks "so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye - not even his - could have detected
any thing wrong (p280)." This last, ditch effort to get one over on the dead man's eye is
a testimony to how deep into the dark and perverted human mind the Tell-Tale narrator has
fallen.
Similarly, the Black Cat narrator shows no remorse when, all in one sentence, he
announces the "hideous murder accomplished..." and moves on "...to the task of concealing
the body (p327) of his dead wife. Calmly, he runs through scenarios in his mind of
cremation, grave digging, or even sending the corpse as a package of merchandize out of
the house. Finally, he settles on a plan much like that of the Tell-Tale narrator, but
instead of concealment under the floor, he chooses concealment behind the cellar walls.
He too, is pleased with his handiwork, as the "wall did not present the slightest
appearance of having been disturbed (p327)." He congratulates himself "triumphantly" and
his "happiness [is] supreme! The guilt of [his]dark deed disturbed [him] but little
(p328)."
At the entrance of the police in both stories, each narrator is at the height of his
madness and thus feeling most invincible in their accomplished murders. The Tell-Tale
narrator states confidently that "the officers were satisfied" and that his "manner had
convinced them (p281)" of his innocence. The Black Cat narrator is equally confident that
the police "were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart (p328)." However, just as
both reinforced their madness to the reader by their insistence of their sanity at the
beginning of their tales, they both reinforce their guilt to the police by their
insistence on their innocence.
The Tell-Tale narrator, "in the wild audacity of [his] perfect triumph (p281)," sits
directly over the floor planks under which the corpse of the old man lies. Sitting,
chatting easily with the police, he begins to feel uneasy and eager for them to leave.
Unable to pinpoint the source of his uneasiness, a ringing in his ears turns, in his
mind, into the beating of the old man's heart. This sound, which excited him to
"uncontrollable terror" before, now drives him into an uncontrollable fit of paranoia and
to confession, as he shrieks, "I admit the deed! - tear up the planks! Here, here! - it
is the beating of his hideous heart (p282)!"
The Black Cat narrator shows the same audacity, as he too, disturbs the ready-made tomb
of his wife. Not only does he detain the police officers for a few more words of smug
assertions of his innocence, but he "rapped heavily, with a cane...upon that very portion
of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the dead wife of [his] bosom (p329)."
Then, as the Tell-Tale narrator hears the sound of his greatest fear, in the beating of
the old man's heart, the Black Cat narrator hears the "wailing shriek (p329)" of the cat.
This doesn't lead him directly to a confession, but it only takes an instant for the
police to tear down the wall and find his dead wife, along with the cat. Like the beating
heart to the Tell-Tale narrator, the cat had "seduced [him] into murder as well as
"consigned [him] to the hangman (p328)."
Poe's formula for horror is apparent in these two stories. Each narrator functions
similarly as a study in the dark and perverse human mind. While there are, of course,
differences in the plots and specific characterizations of the narrators, parallels can
be made on every level, through each event, in each story. Poe presents two figures, who
confront fears in the most irrational and violent of ways, and in their attempts to rid
themselves of these fears, they are trapped by their own madness.