Edgar Allan Poe and his literary contributions

¶ … Tell-Tale Heart, "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe. Specifically it will discuss how in each of these stories, the narrator confesses to his crimes by the end of the story. Many of Poe's short stories have a similar theme. They involve a narrator who is guilty of a crime and confesses to it at the end of the story, sometimes while getting away with the crime. These narrators feel compelled to confess, something that seems inconsistent with their crimes, but is a continual theme in many of Poe's works.

All of these stories (and many more of Poe's) are narrated in the first-person by a disturbed narrator. The narrator has committed some kind of crime, and has the unnatural need to confess about it or be found out somehow by the end of the story. All of these narrators are mad or evil, and they all seem to struggle with insanity. One literary critic writes, "The Tell-Tale Heart' similarly centers on the effects of a guilty conscience, that of the narrator, who has murdered the old man with whom he lives. Setting out to prove his sanity, this narrator, well before his story ends, convinces us that he is indeed mad" (Fisher 87). In "The Cask of Amontillado," Montressor, the narrator, is angry over a suspected slight by his friend, so angry that he walls him up alive, certainly not the action of a sane or rational person. In addition, in "The Black Cat," the narrator kills his wife for no apparent reason, blaming it on alcohol, and then walls up her body in the cellar.

All of these actions point to narrators who have gone insane or acted extremely rashly, which might explain why they have the need to confess or be found out at the end of their stories. They have such a slim grip on reality that they are "proud" of their accomplishment and cannot wait to share it with others. In the case of Montressor, he seems to feel he is quite clever, and cannot resist noting how he has managed to get away with the crime. He says, "I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them" (Poe 345). He cannot resist noting that he managed to pull off the perfect crime, and that no one ever suspected him. In fact, even his friend, Fortunato, did not suspect him, or he never would have entered the cellar with him. Even though these characters are clearly disturbed, they manage to have friends, wives, and acquaintances, and live fairly "normal" lives until they go over the deep end, which is an interesting element of Poe's fiction. Another literary critic notes they all have commonalities that lead them to madness. He writes, "They spend too much time alone, divorced from meaningful social community, family, and friends. As their worlds become literally more circumscribed, their psychological conditions simultaneously narrow -- leading to pathological distortion, obsessive behavior, delusions of grandeur, and a loss of psychic balance" (Magistrale 76). These men are crazy, but not crazy enough to come to the attention of the authorities, until it is far too late.

All of these stories have other elements in common besides their unhinged narrators. They all have an element of perverse murder in them, and two of them are caught, indicating they may have unconsciously confessed in a subconscious way to admit their guilt. The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is desperate for people to think he is sane. Poe writes, "If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body" (Poe 219), and the narrator comments on his sanity throughout the story. The unnamed narrator in "The Black Cat" practically opens up the wall and shows the police his dead wife. He says, "These walls -- are you going, gentlemen? -- these walls are solidly put together'; and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom" (Poe). He, like the "Heart" narrator, seem to have a perverse need to confess their crime and give themselves away, even though they have in a sense committed the "perfect" crime. The "Heart" narrator does the same thing. Poe writes, "In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim" (Poe 219). They are so imperfect they cannot even allow themselves to get away with it. Another critic notes, "As further illustrated in 'The Cask of Amontillado,' 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' and 'The Black Cat,' there can be no real satisfaction in the commission of a crime unless the criminal can tell someone about the deed" (Magistrale 90). Thus, they have a subconscious desire to get caught, but they need to confess the crime to gain true satisfaction and recognition from others, even if that happens to be the police.

Each of these characters have emotional problems that lead to extremely evil and vile acts. Literary critic Fisher continues, "The emotionally overwrought protagonist characterized in Frederick [of "Metzengerstein"] also heads a line of similar characters in Poe's fiction. Frederick's unrestrained evil, which extends to death-dealing acts, recurs in many more Poe protagonists, as does his weltering in guilt, remorse, and confusion, which prompt him to bombastic speeches and violent actions" (Fisher 80). Every protagonist in these three stories have "violent actions," "bombastic speeches" and commit murder of some sort, and they all have clear emotional problems that drive them to their actions. They are heavily flawed characters, Poe is a master at creating distraught and emotionally unstable characters that eventually self-destruct, and these three are classic examples of that pattern.

Poe created these characters because he knew they would draw in readers and make his stories more compelling. Another critic notes, "By depicting unstable psyches unable to discipline their darkest urges, his best tales thrust even the most reluctant reader into the demented interior realms of his characters" (Magistrale 19). All of these stories do that, they do open up the minds of the character for the reader, and they indicate that humankind, even those who seem quite sane and calm, like "The Black Cat" narrator and Montressor, harbor some inner darkness and evil that can come out at any time. It is as if Poe is commenting on humanity and the evil in humanity in these stories. By highlighting that evil, he makes it more real (and so more terrifying) for the reader.

Literary critic Tony Magistrale believes there is another reason these narrators all confess their evil deeds. He believes it somehow comforts them to retell the stories. He writes, "The male characters are compelled to return to the details of their stories, and each is somehow comforted in the retelling of it. Furthermore, the employment of a first-person narration in both tales forces the reader to participate vicariously in the act of revenge" (29). By the use of first-person, Poe again puts the reader right in the middle of the event as it occurs, almost as if they are somehow partially responsible for it, as well, and so they share in the guilty and the guilty pleasure of the narrator.

Each of the narrators attempts to justify his actions sometime in the story, too. "The Black Cat narrator says, "Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? (Poe 250). Again, Poe is attempting to reach out to the reader by appealing to their common sense and common ground. It is difficult to equate murder with a "vile" action committed simply because it is wrong, but each of these men tries to justify their actions. Montressor justifies his revenge because Fortunato insulted his family, and the "Heart" narrator justifies his actions on the old man's terrible eye. They all have their reasons for what they have done, and none of their reasons makes much sense in the real world.