Poe Compare and Contrast Essay

Poe Compare and Contrast Essay Poe’s stories; stories both feared, and loved. Poe lived a very mysterious life. He was known as an alcoholic, and a drug addict, but who was Poe? We know that his childhood was rough, and that death took away many of his loved ones. He had many tragedies in his life, and only lived to be 40. Two of Poe’s stories, “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Black Cat,” are not similar in any ways, except the recurring deaths in the plot. The characters, setting, and conflict are also elements of fiction that make these two different stories unique. The stories are different in regards to the characters, because in “The Masque of the Red Death,” the only characters are Prince Prospero, and the “stranger,” who was the red death. While in “The Black Cat,” the characters were the narrator, the narrator’s wife, Pluto, and the new cat. These characters make the story different, because in “The Masque of the Red
Death,”the character’s are very upscale, and royal, while the characters in “The Black Cat,” are an everyday family, which is very relatable. None of us have ever been a prince, or a princess, so I find it is easier to connect with “The Black Cat”’s everyday characters. Another way the characters make the stories different, is how they are actually different species. Although there are humans in both stories, the animal characters in “The Black Cat,” shake up the story and make it different from all the rest. The text says this about the animal character Pluto: “...and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.” Poe 2. The character who shakes up the “The Masque of the Red Death” story, was in fact, the red death character. This is a different character, because you do not know if he is, in fact a real character, or if he is just the disease. At the beginning, the story says, ”The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been