The Tell-Tale Heart & Catbird Seat

The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

This short story by Poe is told in first person, stream of consciousness, point of view, by the protagonist. The protagonist is a man that is quite obviously insane, who believes he is clever in every act he sets in place in order to kill the old man, who is the antagonist. The old man is a tenant of the same building as the protagonist, his one blue-eye is fixated on by the narrator, and it is supposedly the reason why he is killed. The protagonist is a round character whom is very complex, the way he tells you what he is doing and how he is doing it and why he is doing it shows you everything. The setting is in an older time period, no electricity, gold is of importance on a private level, the floor is wood planks. Everything takes place at night or in the early morning. The mood of it is creepy and dark. I think the conflict is very much external, the protagonist is so fixated on the old man’s blue eye that nothing else matters to him except killing the old man just to get rid of the eye. There is also an obvious struggle internally for the protagonist, he’s definitely insane. The theme for The TellTale Heart I think is that when you know you’ve done something bad, your conscious will still haunt you about it, so you shouldn’t want something and realize it wasn’t a good choice. The protagonist didn’t realize that the “heart” beating under the floorboards while the police were there was probably just his conscious taking over.

I really like this story; I like most of Poe’s work. The protagonist is so creepy that it’s interesting; you just can’t put the book down after you’ve started reading it. Its one my favorite short stories. I can’t imagine someone fixating on something to the point of wanting to kill someone over it, that’s just crazy.

The Catbird Seat By James Thurber

The Catbird Seat is written in third person limited omniscient point of view. The protagonist is Mr. Martin who is a very intelligent man who doesn’t drink or smoke, and has a regular schedule for everyday. He is a round character, complex in thought, and hard to predict what he will do. Mrs. Barrows is the antagonist; she is very annoying and obnoxious. She is a static character because she never changes, she is predictable. The setting is in New York, in 1941 and 1942, in the office of F&S where Mr. Martin has worked for 22 years. The conflict is external, the protagonist Mr. Martin is against his department at F&S being changed under the decisions of Mrs. Barrows and he tricks her into making herself seem crazy mentally. The theme is to take charge of what you do in life, or in the workplace, to make the right choices. The social context of the story is that women in the 40’s didn’t work much in offices, other than maybe being a receptionist and that could be why Mr. Martin disliked her so much. There were allusions to quotes used by the Brooklyn Dodgers announcer. It was ironic how Mr. Martins plan was carried out, making Mrs. Barrows seem insane. It was also ironic that Mr. Martin did eventually “sit pretty” in the catbird seat, still having his job, and how he wanted his department in the end.

For the longest time in this story I thought Mr. Martin was going to murder Mrs. Barrows, it just seemed that is what he was up to. But, the foreshadowing with getting the cigarettes told us otherwise I suppose. It was an interesting story, not what I expected it to be, not that I expected it to be boring, just that it took turns in directions I wasn’t expecting.