By: Muhammadshaheer Imran
Anybody can go mad from grief, fear or guilt whether they are the criminal or the victim. In “The Raven”, one raven makes the speaker of the poem go mad because after repeating the words, “nevermore”, the speaker of reminded of the maiden, Lenore, who he will never see again. In “A Tell-tale Heart”, the narrator, who has anxiety disorder, becomes afraid of the eye of one old man and kills him to rid himself of the eye. The narrator actually fools to police after they come to investigate a shriek but then he starts to hear his heart beat very loudly. His heart beats so loudly that he turns himself in to escape the noise. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and “A Tell-tale Heart” both explore the criminal’s and the victim’s minds as they both descend into insanity.
In, “The Raven”, the speaker hears knocking sounds from the door and windows. Eventually, he finds a raven on his chamber door that continue to repeat the word, “nevermore”. The raven’s words somehow remind the speaker of someone he lost and will never see again, a maiden named Lenore. This is because the words “nevermore” imply that never again will the speaker see Lenore. Now some argue that the speaker was just mourning and wasn’t insane. While this may be true, the way the speaker acted showed he had truly gone mad. He yelled at the raven, “”Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—””.While the speaker goes mad from grief, the narrator of, “A Tell-tale Heart”, appears to go mad from fear and guilt of his sinful deed. The narrator in, “A Tell-tale Heart”, is insane and seems to have some form of an anxiety disorder. The narrator fears the eye of one old man for a reason even he doesn’t know why. He states that “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night”. While some people may say that this was a lie in a way to try and make himself seem less guilty, they forget that the narrator actually admitted himself to the police even after he had already convinced the police he was innocent.
“The Raven” and “A Tell-tale Heart” are both quite similar. Some might argue that they are so similar that they are just the same story in a different setting. The speaker and narrator both go mad from the symbol from the title of each respective story. The speaker goes mad from the raven and the narrator goes mad from his heart being so loud he cannot take it. The narrator’s heart made him literally tell the tale of his crime. The raven was like a child mocking another child for a small matter.
However, the two stories have quite a few differences. While the narrator of, “A Tell-tale Heart” was responsible for a crime, the speaker of, “The Raven”, appears to be the victim of a crime. The two characters also go mad from different emotions. The raven represented grief and regret while the heart represented anxiety and guilt.
“A Tell-tale Heart”, and, “The Raven”, show loss on both sides of a crime. The speaker and narrator are both like children one being bullied and one in trouble who both end up crying after the teacher intervened. The similarity between their emotions show how different people have similar reactions when faced with loss, distress, guilt, and sadness.
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