Foreshadowing In Tell-Tale Heart And The Monkey's Paw

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Tell-Tale Heart and The Monkey’s Paw are both riveting pieces of literature incorporated with suspenseful languages. In Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator had murdered an old man since his evil eye vexed him/her. The Monkey’s Paw regarded a talisman that disturbed a quiet, stable family. Both passages contained similar foreshadowings and motivations, however the tones differed throughout them.
In both Tell-Tale Heart and The Monkey’s Paw, there had been various exemplars of foreshadowing materializing. Foreshadowing is when clues are deliberately planted in a story to hint what is going to eventually occur. In Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator had been undeniably bothered by an eye with a pale film over it, or an “evil eye”. As quoted from the story, “Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still; But the beating grew louder and louder!” (Poe, 275) The narrator had considered the murder, then after a period of time, the beating of the old man’s heart triggered the …show more content…
The primary motivation for the narrator in Tell-Tale Heart of the slaughtering is to eliminate an eye that vexed him/her. As stated from the short passage, “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, 273) The narrator faithfully believed the superstition that the “evil eye” would harm him/her, like how the monkey’s paw was structured upon a superstition. An old fakir bestowed a “curse” on a monkey’s paw to teach people not to intervene with fate, which is also the motivation of the talisman. Quoted by W.W. Jacobs, “. . . and that those who intervened with it did so to their sorrow.” (Jacobs, 2) The consequences of the talisman were devastating and in the White family’s case, Herbert presumably died due to it. Ultimately, both motivations of the two pieces of literature concluded with
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Tell Tale Heart Vs. W. Jacobs Analysis

Suspense is one of the most important elements in an eerie and frightening story or movie, and without it, there it wouldn’t be spine-chilling. In the story “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, he creates a very suspenseful mood to entice readers into continuing to read the story. In the story, “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs, he also creates a suspenseful mood to make readers interested and read until the end of the story. The authors of these stories, Edgar Allen Poe and W. W. Jacobs, also…

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