Comparitive Paragraph

Comparison Paragraph – Manveer Grewal The character of Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the narrator in Edgar Allen Poe’s story The Tell Tale Heart has many key similarities. They both plan out and commit a murder of someone in their sleep but go insane after they have committed it. The first similarity is that both these character begin to go insane from the guilt of committing a murder in cold blood. Macbeth begins to hear voices after he commits the murder of King Duncan. He says “Still it cried ‘sleep no more!’ to all the house: ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more!” (2.2.41-43). In The Tell Tale Heart, the narrator starts hearing the beating of the old man’s heart. The beating heart drives him to the point where he tells the police officers in the room about the corpse buried under the floorboards. At the very end of the story he says “’Villains!’ I shrieked, ‘dissemble no more! I admit the deed! – tear up the planks! – here, here! – it is the beating of his hideous heart!’” (Poe, 4). They both began hearing things and went crazy from the guilt of the murder. The other similarity between the two is that they both planned out and executed a murder specifically when their victim was asleep. Macbeth planned to murder King Duncan. He had planned it all out from the signal bell to the guards who would be his scapegoats. As Macbeth approaches King Duncan’s chamber, he says “I go and it is done: the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a kneel, that summons thee to heaven or to hell.” (2.1.62-64). In The Tell Tale Heart, the narrator devised a plan throughout the span of many days to murder an old man because his eye resembled that of a vulture. He spent many night planning and doing small things that would eventually lead to him murdering the old man. While explaining why he did it, the narrator said “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - - very gradually - - I