Compare And Contrast Tell Tale Heart And A Christmas Carol

As an individual, we are put into circumstances where we have to make difficult choices. Sometimes these options aren’t just, and the torture becomes inevitable. The choices we make play a huge part in deciding whether people can be virtuous in nature. In The Tell Tale Heart, a nameless man perpetrates murder and refuses lunacy. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge becomes aware of his miserly behavior and eventually performs kindness. Both characters in the story make personal decisions depending on their own situation, testing the goodness of their character.
In The Tell Tale Heart, the narrator, a nameless man who constantly declares he is sane when he undoubtedly is not. In beginning, he insists: "TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous …show more content…
He mentions it was because of the old man's eye that swayed him to commit murder: “I think it was his eye! […] Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe, par. 2). Before the murder, he describes how he was nice to the old man the week before he committed the crime: "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him" (Poe, par. 3). He remains attentive of the old man. In the beginning, he states that he loves the old man, as he had done nothing nefarious to him. This shows kindness in the man, but in the end his thoughts take over …show more content…
It’s like he’s trying to fill in an empty space that cannot end and he is alone in the process of everything that is happening. The psychotic man takes pleasure in murdering the old man, but he is later pestered by his wrongdoing. Eventually, he tells the police officers that he committed the crime. The narrator's actions convey his mental instability as he conceals the body inside the house and how he hears of the old man's beating heart. The nameless man has a conscience, which reveal a sense of right and wrong that people may not see. There is good left in him; it’s just the matter of learning how to cope with his

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Compare And Contrast Tell Tale Heart And A Christmas Carol