I have a paper that is due for the comparing and contrasting of "the Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart". Could anyone please help me with their input.

Thank You.

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2003

Answers

Well, start by listing all the similarities. Narration, protesting dishonest or somewhat crazed narrator. Obsessive murder. Guilt surfacing against their wishes. The dumb and nearly irrelevant victim. The plan. The burying. The use of sounds(both must drown out their victim and their minds) and light and time. The double take: two attempts in the TTheart and the pause and questioning of Fortunato before putting in the last brick. And so forth.

Montresor is cruelly sane with repressed guilt. He gets away with it as only the cold criminal can though hints of the raw weight of guilt appear often in the narration and boasting. The madman is trying to escape his fear by fulfilling it in insane murder. He has to work himself up while the "noble" must merely repress pity. In a sense the madman is killing himself(The Imp of the Perverse" and succeeds very well), but Montresor's god is is personal honor and ego- and survives.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2003