Preview

Comparing Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover And The Tell-Tale Heart

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
242 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Comparing Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover And The Tell-Tale Heart
In both Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘The Demon Lover’ and Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, the opening paragraph gives the reader a rather odd mood. This mood is often set by the use of focalization, which in both cases internal focalization is used. But does is make a difference whether or not the opening paragraph is focalized through a character?
‘The Demon Lover’ starts off with Mrs Drover going back to her old house in London to pick up several things. As she walks towards the front door, a cat shows up watching Mrs Drover but “no human eye watched Mrs Drover’s return” (p.10, line 9). When the young woman opens the door, she feels a “dead air” (p.10, line 11) rushing towards her. With this information, said in only the first paragraph,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The book the Tale-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe Published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who tries to convince the reader of his reasons, while telling a crime he committed. The victim was an old man with a bluish greyish eye.…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Honore de Balzac, a French novelist, once said, “Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact”. Tomson Highway’s story “Hearts and Flowers” relates the despairing experiences of an eight-year-old Cree boy whose personal achievement at a small-town music festival takes place on the same day that Parliament provides the franchise to Native people. To begin, the white people were ignorant towards the Native people. Secondly, the white people treated the Native people with a lack of respect. Finally, Native people are revoked from their right to vote as well as being thought of as non-human.…

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Horace Kephart was born in 1862 in Pennsylvania, but he spent much of his youth in Iowa. He had become the director of the Mercantile Library in St. Louis in Missouri. Also he became an expert in exploration, be outdoors and to study nature was one of his greatest passions.…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although readers who have read Edgar Allen Poe's, "The Tell-Tale Heart," have stated the narrator is insane, a closer look shows that he is actually sane by means of nervousness, patience, and murder.…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Tell Tale Heart” is well-written as Edgar Allen Poe creates suspense throughout the scenes in the story. As he does this in an appealing way to attract the reader's interest. This is well written as it starts off with a good introduction about how the old man is loved by the narrator but he wants him dead because of his vulture eye. Edgar Allen Poe then shows direct and indirect characterization about the narrator as he stalks the old man at night planning how he will kill him. As Edgar Allen Poe is great with showing the narrator's emotions through indirect characterization. The story never goes off topic and is in good order from start to finish on the relationship with the narrator and the old man.…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The classic short story, The Tell Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe, and the iconic Southern Gothic work, Everything That Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O’Connor, are two excellent examples of how authors use the tool of the narrator to manipulate the reader's knowledge and opinions on events happening around them. Though these short stories are vastly different in their plot line, both short stories explore the depths of human nature and opinion. Both Poe and O’Connor use literary devices, genre, and theme to demonstrate the untrustworthy nature of the narrator and how the reader should not and cannot always trust them. Both Poe and O'Connor use various literary devices to demonstrate the untrustworthy nature of the narrator in their respective short stories. In The Tell…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear can either paralyze people-or wake them up. Essentially, it keeps us safe and drives us to survive. Fear makes us more conscious and strengthens our instincts. However, fear can cause crippling anxiety. Not allowing any enjoyment out of the bounds of what is perceived as “safe”. Fear can also cause obsession, hallucinations, and fits of constant paranoia. Edgar Allan Poe uses objects that each character obsesses over to induce fear. Though each character subjected to Poe’s devices react differently they are all connected through irony, symbolism, and theme.…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This demonstrates how he gains confidence on the action he has done. Also, the narrator believes that he can take away the live of the old man without any consequences. Significantly, this shows how the narrator is emotionally unstable because he has a satisfaction when he kills the old man.…

    • 127 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear can be helpful in many ways. It can help by offering restraint and it can suppress irrational acts. An example is driving past the red light. As the light turns from yellow to red you think of stepping on it, but the fear of receiving a ticket stops you from speeding. Fear can be useful, but it can also be damaging. A disadvantage of fear is that it can lead to paranoia which then leads to obsession. Obsession is dangerous as seen in the three stories written by Edgar Allen Poe. The first story “Tell-Tale Heart”, it's about a man that obsesses about a creepy eye. The “Pit and the Pendulum” is about a man that’s stuck in a prison and is faced with many extremely difficult obstacles. Finally, the “Masque of Red Death” is about a prince named Prince Prospero that fears the red death and so locks himself and his friends from the outside world. In the all of the three stories, Poe uses symbol, irony, and imagery to inform us on how fear can deceive your rational thoughts and the outcome of the trick.…

    • 864 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tell-Tale Heart Vs Bowen

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Life is all About mysteries and wonders, but a man's thought can be more horrifying. “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Demo Lover” both shear a dark and mysterious plot. In which both stories have the main characters shown as if they were covered in fear. Although “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Demon Lover” By Elizabeth Bowen have a lot of differences, they both have much in common as well.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Villains and heroes are the fabric of human culture. These sides of good and evil are seen in books, films, and everywhere in-between. For example, an iconic figure in American pop culture is the superhero, Superman. On the other side, villains such as Lizzie Borden, and the narrator from The Tell-Tale Heart allude to humanities dark side. The significance of villains and heroes are they encompass society’s hopes and fears. The rise of a hero represents a possible bright future, but an evil villain entails our dark past and possible dark future. The important characteristics of villains are that they spread fear and cause harm, meanwhile heroes are saviors who put others above themselves, have attributes we wish we had and that is why heroes…

    • 1396 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe used literary devices of setting to create a dark ,threatening tone in his short story Tell,Tale,Heart Which are mood and atmosphere,time,and population.…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edgar Allen Poe begins “The Tell-Tale Heart” with suspense. The narrator describes what his “disease” has done to him and claims that he is not mad. However, it becomes evident that the narrator is insane. As the narrator descends further into madness, Poe creates a feeling of suspense through the exploration of the narrator’s motivation to kill, revealing his attention to detail as the crime is committed, and climaxing as the narrator confesses his transgression.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    'The Tell Tale Heart' is a story about a man who killed an old man just because he didn't like the way his eyes looked like. The main character speaks about madness as being a gift and not a kid of disability for example in paragraph one on page 93 he says: ' but why would you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them'. The mad man killed the old man and then cut him up and put him under the floorboards of the house.…

    • 2004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In “The Tale Tell Heart.” Edgar Allen Poe tells a story of murder. A no named narrator begins a tale of the murder of an old man. The narrator claims the murder is for the destruction of the eye with cataract. The narrator starts stalking the old man while he sleeps and ultimately murders the old man and buries him in his bedroom. A neighbor hears the old man scream and calls the police. When the policemen show up, the narrator shows them around the house and lets them rest in the old man 's bedroom. The narrator begins to hear what he thinks is the old man 's heartbeat and later confess the crime. Alice Sebold said, “You save yourself or you remain unsaved.” Although, the old man 's life was taken, the narrator saves himself. The narrator is a victim of father son incest. Symbols and conflict identify the narrator as the victim of father son incest.…

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays