Lily Wathen

Period 7

Removed From Reality

People have been removed from reality before, but most of the time,
they are not so removed as to think that killing someone is acceptable. In the
two following stories being compared, both have a narrator whose perception
is not quite what the reality of a situation is. "The Tell Tale Heart", written by
Edgar Allen Poe, has a narrator who believes that killing his neighbor is
justified because his neighbor had an eye cataract, but in reality, no killing is
acceptable. In The Black Cat, also written by Edgar Allen Poe, there is also
a narrator whose perception is removed from reality. This narrator believes
that if a cat is ignoring him, it justifiable to cut out the cats eye. However,
the narrator in Tell Tale Heart is more removed from reality than the narrator
in The Black Cat.
In "The Tell Tale Heart", written by Edgar Allen Poe, the main character
has no name, and is simply known as the narrator. Of the two characters,
this narrator is the most removed from reality for the following reason. He
starts hearing his neighbors heartbeat, even though he just killed him. He
states that,
Suddenly I knew that the sound was not in my ears, it was not just
inside my head. At that moment I must have become quite white. I
talked still faster and louder. And the sound, too, became louder. It was
a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall,
a sound I knew well.
This shows that the narrator of "The Tell Tale Heart" is removed from reality,
because he is hearing a heartbeat of a dead man, even though in reality

there is nothing for anybody to hear. This is one reason that the narrator of
"The Tell Tale Heart" is the most removed character from reality.

Another reason that the narrator from "The Tell Tale Heart" is the most
removed character from reality is because earlier in the story, he had killed
his neighbor, due to his neighboring having eye cataracts, that he described
as a vultures eye. After the eighth night, when he killed the old man, he had
stated that,
First I cut off the head, then the arms and the legs. I was careful not to
let a single drop of blood fall on the floor. I pulled up three of the
boards that formed the floor, and put the pieces of the body there.
Then I put the boards down again, carefully, so carefully that no human
eye could see that they had been moved.
This proves that he is very removed from reality because he is enjoying
cutting up his neighbors body. He believes that it is okay that he just killed
his neighbor, just because the eye of the old man looks different, when the
reality of this situation is very different, because killing is never okay. This is
another reason that the narrator of "The Tell Tale Heart"s perception is the
most twisted from reality.
Another story whose main character is removed from reality that was
similar to "The Tell Tale Heart", is The Black Cat, also written by Edgar Allan
Poe. The Black Cats main character, is similar to the one in "The Tell Tale
Heart" in the way that it has no name and is simply known as The Narrator.
In the middle of the story, the narrators reality starts to become twisted and
he states that,

I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his
fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his
teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no
longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my
body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled
every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife,
opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut
one of its eyes from the socket!
This statement shows how his reality has become warped because he will cut
out a cats eye just because he thinks that the cat is avoiding him. For this
reason, the narrator from The Black Cats perception is not what reality is.
Though the narrators from both "The Tell Tale Heart" and The Black
Cat have very unrealistic realities, the narrator from "The Tell Tale Heart"s
perception is way farther from reality than the narrator from The Black Cat.
The narrator in "The Tell Tale Heart" had a neighbor who had an eye cataract,
and decided that the only way to never see the old mans eye cataract was
to kill the neighbor. While making up his mind about what to do about his
neighbors eye, he said that, And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old
man and close that eye forever! This is something that no one who is living
in reality would do, because they would know that you should never murder
someone and make up excuses about their eye freaking you out. The
narrator from The Black Cat was also drunk when he attacked Pluto the cat, so
that gives him a partial excuse for thinking that cutting out an innocent cats eye is
alright. For these reasons and more, the narrator form The Black Cat is less
removed from reality than the narrator from "The Tell Tale Heart"

Edgar Allen Poe wrote many short stories, two of which are The Tell
Tale Heart and The Black Cat. In both of these stories, the main character,

who is known as the narrator, perceives the world very differently than how it
is in reality. In The Black Cat, the narrator returned home one day drunk,
and cut out his cats eye, thinking that it was avoiding him on purpose. This
narrator believed that his drunken state was an excuse for his actions.
Though some may believe that the narrator in The Black Cat has a reality
furthest from what reality really is, in The Tell Tale Heart, the narrator killed
his neighbor due to the old mans eye scaring him. He believed that the
creepy eye was an excuse to make his murder justified. The reality isnt what
either of the narrators perceived it to be. Though both characters have a
twisted sense of reality, the narrator from The Tell Tale Heart has a reality
farther from what the world is really like.