The Tell-Tale Heart 2 gr. A

Similarities

•  we can't trust both narrators. In FHU, he's imagining things. In TTH, he's lying.
  
• in both stories, there's the topic / theme of death and madness 
• no female character
• the language
• acuteness of the senses
  

 

Differences 

• In the TTH, the narrator / hero is an antagonist. In FHU, he tries to save R. Usher (or is he ?)
  
• less supernatural elements in TTH than in FHU (unless there is none in FHU)
  
• The text in TTH is more explicit than in FHU
• in TTH the plot / Story is told more directly, straight to the point.
• Is TTH Gothic ?
• FHU is longer than TTH
• No double in TTH
• "The Perverse" in TTH

 Summary

 It's about a person (the narrator) who lives with an old man. He decides to kill him because he's got an "evil eye," a "vulture's eye." So every night, for one week, the narrator stays in front of the old man's bedroom door and spies the old man as he sleeps.

 Characterization / Modern Horror Literature

 1. The Metamorphosis, F. Kafka, 1915

a. It's about a man who wakes up and he's changed into a human-size insect.

b. We first know what he looks like after the metamorphosis, we don't know how he looked like before, and we get to know his reaction and his thoughts. He's not horrified, he's chill about it / he's sort of ok. It's a third-person narrative.

> Kafka was not published in his lifetime, he didn't want to. He asked his best friend to burn all his manuscripts after his death, but his friend sent them to a publisher instead.

 

2. The Thing on the Doorstep, H.P. Lovecraft, 1937

a. The story is about a man who kills someone in his cell. But he says he's not the murderer.

b. The narrator says people will call him a madman. This first-person narrative starts with "It is true", just like TTH. He also claims contradictory statements.

> Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s and 1930s, creating monstrous creatures plotting the downfall of man (Cthulhu for example), and fictional cities (Arkham) or books (the Necronomicon). He was an admirer of Poe. Many writers corresponded with him.

 3. The Apple Tree, D. du Maurier, 1952

a. It takes place in December, Nat is a simple farmer. He looks at birds, and he likes to work alone.

b. We know he's married with children, and solitary ; it's a third person narrative. His environment is described. But there's another character, or characters : the birds.

> The Apple Tree is a short story anthology. A. Hitchcock bought the rights to The Birds and adapted it in the early 1960s, and changed the story quite a lot. She was not only a horror writer.

4.