A_Tale_Of_Two_Murders

A Tale Of Two Murders A tale of two murders: Comparing the "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart.” Edgar Allan Poe has often been considered the father of the psychological thriller. Two of his best examples are "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado." Both are excellent short stories that tell of murder, revenge, and madness. The narrators of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and the "The Cask of Amontillado" are trying to convince the reader of their sanity but have only become victims of the madness, which they had hoped to escape. By analyzing the differences and the similarities of "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," one can see that Poe uses a certain approach in creating these two works. Poe has been the center of many critical studies; most trying to dissect his mind and get into the heart and meaning of his work, "Criticism now tends to ask, not whether Poe is a great writer, but why" (Buranelli 132). Poe's characters in both "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado" confess of murder. Not only do they both commit murder, but they also escape external punishment and suffer endless internal turmoil. Therefore, "The punishment comes not from a heart, tell-tale, cask, both, amontillado, narrator, stories, murder, poe, one, narrators, revenge, story, reader, old, never, fortunado, davidson, dark, victims, punishment, montresor, minds, man, mad, becomes, 189, under, two, tells, subconscious, similarities, side, setting, sanity