Compare and Contrast Poe and Steinbeck
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- Date Submitted: 03/11/2010 07:03 PM
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Poe vs. Steinbeck: One Short Story Shall Stay
The title of the book is “Literature” which is artistic writing worthy of being remembered due to the expression and form and by universality of intellectual and emotional appeal. Since this book is written for students to aggrandize the knowledge of literature, the stories must be appealing and interesting. In experience, students are more attracted to the darker theme presented by “The Tell-Tale Heart” and enthralled by the almost psychotic tone and impressive characterization. Therefore, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a more fitting choice to keep in the literature book than “The Chrysanthemums” due to the plot, characterization, and tone conveyed in the short story.
The plots of the two stories are complete opposites. In the short story “The Chrysanthemums,” Steinbeck projects the plot in a rather nonchalant manner. The basic plot of the story is Elisa grows the best chrysanthemums and is somewhat under minded and underappreciated. For example, her husband remarks comments like, “I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big.” (Steinbeck 227) and also by the tinker who throws out the chrysanthemums to the middle of the road but kept the pot. For the most part, the story is uninteresting and becomes difficult to understand when interest is lost. However, “The Tell-Tale Heart” grabs the reader’s attention from the beginning to the end. “Poe’s work has a profound ability to draw the reader into the minds of his narrators,” says Barbara Cantalupo, the editor of The Edgar Allan Poe Review. (Johns) The plot is rather clever and disturbing. It is the story of a man who suffers of an illness which he quotes “the disease had sharpened my senses.” (Poe 37) He watched an old man sleep for days and urges to kill him all because of his “evil eye” which “resembled that of a vulture.” (Poe 37) One night he finally kills the old man, dismembers his body, and thinks of himself as “clever.”...
The title of the book is “Literature” which is artistic writing worthy of being remembered due to the expression and form and by universality of intellectual and emotional appeal. Since this book is written for students to aggrandize the knowledge of literature, the stories must be appealing and interesting. In experience, students are more attracted to the darker theme presented by “The Tell-Tale Heart” and enthralled by the almost psychotic tone and impressive characterization. Therefore, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a more fitting choice to keep in the literature book than “The Chrysanthemums” due to the plot, characterization, and tone conveyed in the short story.
The plots of the two stories are complete opposites. In the short story “The Chrysanthemums,” Steinbeck projects the plot in a rather nonchalant manner. The basic plot of the story is Elisa grows the best chrysanthemums and is somewhat under minded and underappreciated. For example, her husband remarks comments like, “I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big.” (Steinbeck 227) and also by the tinker who throws out the chrysanthemums to the middle of the road but kept the pot. For the most part, the story is uninteresting and becomes difficult to understand when interest is lost. However, “The Tell-Tale Heart” grabs the reader’s attention from the beginning to the end. “Poe’s work has a profound ability to draw the reader into the minds of his narrators,” says Barbara Cantalupo, the editor of The Edgar Allan Poe Review. (Johns) The plot is rather clever and disturbing. It is the story of a man who suffers of an illness which he quotes “the disease had sharpened my senses.” (Poe 37) He watched an old man sleep for days and urges to kill him all because of his “evil eye” which “resembled that of a vulture.” (Poe 37) One night he finally kills the old man, dismembers his body, and thinks of himself as “clever.”...