Murder and death are common themes throughout literature works. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Alan Poe and “A Vendetta” by Guy de Maupassant, both authors explore the theme of murder in their stories. Both authors take the reader into the character’s mindset before and after committing murder. Although both stories have similarities in the way the protagonists patiently planned the murder; however, there are differences in the motives for murder, the way the murders were committed, and the characters remorse. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the paranoid madman believes that one of “old man’s eyes resembles a vulture eyes” and decides to rid himself of the “evil eye” by killing the old man. (Poe, par. 3) At midnight the madman opens the old man’s room door, enough to get his head through and watches him sleep. The madman does this for seven nights straight at exactly midnight. On the eighth night, while the madman is watching the old man sleep, something startles the old man and he awakens from his sleep. The madman can see the old …show more content…
Even though, both stories are somewhat similar in how the protagonists carefully plan out their murders; they both are unique and distinctive in their own way. In “A Vendetta”, the old widow committed an act of murder because she wants to avenge her son’s death. The old widow wanted her son’s killer to suffer a painful death, even after her cruel act, she was still able to sleep peacefully. In contrast, in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the mad man kills the old man because he detested the old man’s eye. In the end, the mad men could not get away with what he has done because his conscience was driving him crazy. Both stories are about the act of murder; however, at the end, only one was able to get away with the murder and live with the fact that they had kill