Page 4 - Edgar Allan Poe

Themes
Some of the most common themes of the tales are: perverseness seen as a primiIve impulse of the human heart, cruelty as a form of pleasure (The Black Cat), the cohexistence of crime and sense of guilty, madness as an aspect of higher awareness, the relaIon between logical reasoning and insanity. Some other typical romanIc themes are the fusion of beauty and death, of crea7on and destruc7on (The Oval Portrait). Poe also exlored the theme of the double in the twins of the Fall of the House of Usher, where they represent two sides of a personality.
Above Illustra'on of the Tell -Tale Heart by Alberto Marini.
The Tell Tale Heart (1843) – Plot Obsessed with the vulture-like eye of an old man he loves and trusts, the narrator strangles the old man, cuts his body into pieces, and hides the parts under the floorboards of the bedroom. When the police arrive to invesIgate reports of the old man’s shrieks, the narrator tries to keep his cool, but then begins to hear what he thinks is the beaIng of the old man’s heart. Panicking, afraid that the police know his secret, he breaks up the floorboards and confesses his crime.
Le@ Illustra'on of the Tell -Tale Heart by Ivan Ispulla (2019)