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In this paper I will discuss the themes of three Different stories. All of these stories involve betrayal, murders, insanity, and revenge. The themes of these stories have some similarities and different situations. The three stories that will be analyzed are; The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Tell Tale Heart.
All of these stories were written by the same author (Edgar Allan Poe) therefore it is self-explanatory why there are similarities in the stories. In the Cask of Amontillado Montressor is seeking revenge from Fortunato. They were both wine connoisseurs. They were friends and also worked together. Somewhere in the past Fortunato betrayed Montressor and Montressor was affected deeply by it. He wanted sweet revenge, so he planned out a murder scheme to kill fortunate.
Montressor acted normal as if he was Fortunato's friend. One night before the carnival Montressor invites fortunate over his place to test out a whine so that he makes sure that it is the right wine. When they arrive at the chambers Montressor takes him all the way down and into a small room. On the way down Montressor gives him different types of wine as if it was for testing.
It turns out that Montressor wanted to get him drunk so that when he took him to the small chamber and chained him, Fortunato would be too drunk to fight back. Montressor sat by the chamber until he heard Fortunato's last whispers before his death. The theme categorized as: man versus man. Fortunato betrayed Montressor. This is what caused the conflict. This drove Montressor crazy to the point that he wanted to kill Fortunato.
His obsession with revenge was also a main sign of his insanity. Montressor would always think of it and how not to make it obvious that he was up to something. He carried out his plan and made a perfect crime out of it. The Fall of the House of Usher is about a man that goes help his sick friend from his home town. When he shoes up he notices that everything including the house is deteriorating. His friend Roderick Usher is not well.
At first, the narrator thinks this is due to his wifes mortal illness. Ushers wife is also his sister. Usher and his wife look like living cadavers and this disturbs the narrator emotionally. His concern with Usher makes him stay. While he is there Usher acts nervous and impatient. Days later Ushers wife Madeline dies and Usher asks him if he would help him take her to the chambers.
After he leaves her inside the chambers, he feels insecure. He decides to ignore his insecurities and help Usher through his wifes death. As the days go by he starts feeling nervous and impatient like his friend Usher. One night he couldnt go to sleep so he went downstairs. He found Roderick sitting down with a crazed look on his face.
The narrator started to hear some faint knocking on the chambers. Then he realized that they had laid Lady Madeline in her tomb before her death. Usher runs down to the Chambers and struggles with Madeline and kills her. Then he starts running back up. The Narrator runs outside and watches the house fall. With this the story ends.
The theme of the story is categorized as: man versus Society. Usher and his wife are not accepted because of their relationship. They are ridiculed because they are married and they are also siblings. Usher and his wife become ill because of all the tension. Usher starts to become insane because he want to love his sister in a way the society does not find appropriate.
His insanity grow s day by day until he decides that he is just going to leave her in the chambers locked until she dies. The narrator helped Usher take her down to the chambers and ignored the fact that she was still alive. Usher felt that if he was not allowed to love her that way then she would have to die so that she can be out of his life. After he kills her in the chambers madness overtakes his body and he goes after his friend to kill him, but the house falls on him causing his death.
The Tell Tale Heart is about a man plotting to kill an old man. This man loved his old roommate, but could not stand his evil eye. The eye caused him to go insane. Every night he would try and creep in to kill the old man, but the eye would never be open. He couldnt kill the man when his eye was closed because it was the eye he hated. One night he crept in and the eye was open.
He killed the old man and hid his body under the floor panels. The police showed up and searched the house without any suspicion that this man had just killed someone. He invited them to sit and relax. While they were talking he heard a faint heartbeat.
The heartbeat got louder and louder and he thought that the police could hear it and were making a mockery of his horror. So he confessed his crime to stop the police from mocking him any further. The theme of the story is categorized: man versus self. The mans insanity was caused by his own imagination. He paid attention to the eye instead of ignoring it. After he killed the man and the cops walked in his own mind played games with him by making him hear a heartbeat.
He confessed his crime because of his own insanity. Although all of the stories had different themes, the themes had some similarities. The main characters of all the stories were insane. Insanity drove them to kill their victims. The author of these stories, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote stories involving insanity. All the characters became mentally ill by society, their own imagination, or their obsession with revenge.
Even though the situations were different the stories had some similarities that were a big factor in the stories. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Edgar Allan Poe Cask Of Amontillado
