Comparing The Tell-Tale Heart to A Telephone Call Essay

Edgar Allan Poe and Dorothy Parker are famous and very interesting American writers. Edgar Allan Poe is known as a great innovator of the short story and people can recognize him from a horror tales and his detective stories. Dorothy Parker was also one of the most successful women writer in her era. Her bitchy and sarcastic character we can easily find in her works too. So, it would be interesting to compare E.A.Poe‘s story “ The Tell-Tale Heart “ and D.Parker’s “A Telephone Call “, because I think we can find interesting similarities and differences between them.

First of all, I think I can observe two main similarities in these stories. Both stories are written like a interior monologue. Interior monologue is one particular kind of stream of consciousness writing. Writers wanted to display for readers’ inspection, in a way that is impossible in real life, their characters’ private inner lives. E.A.Poe in his story wrote someone’s thoughts about how he killed an old man. Writer clearly tells us about how he killed an old man in this story and that he is afraid about what he did. D.Parker’s story is also an interior monologue about one’s woman’s thoughts. That woman is felt in love with one man and is thinking about his call. Second similarity is that “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “A Telephone call “has a one subject which is a reason of each story. In the E.A.Poe’s story this subject is a pale blue eye, because of it a main character decided to kill an old man. The “A Telephone Call “has the subject which is a man, because a woman felt in love with him and she was thinking about him then.

I can find many differences despite of that the both stories are monologues and that means each writer has a different writing style. First difference is that the stories have different main characters. There is a woman in one story and a man in another. I think that is a reason why the stories have different themes. “A Telephone Call “is a story about love where the main character is a woman. Absolutely different is “The Tell-Tale Heart“where writer wrote us about murder that committed a man. So, we can see that theme can depend on main character, because I think woman’s way of thinking is different from men’s. Women tend to write about good things such a love, happiness or other things. In contrast, gents write more about action in our life and cruel things. Second difference between the stories is that it’s have different endings. E.A.Poe’s story has the ending we can clearly see the ending and completed story where the killer was arrested in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. D.Parker’s story doesn’t have the ending and it means that author wants people to think about her story. Everyone who is reading her story can think deeply about it and discuss ending, and woman’s destiny.

In conclusion, I can say that the stories look similar because they are both an interior monologue, but we can find the differences that show us more about the authors and their writing style. I can easily say that comparing two stories helped me to understand better these works and its main ideas.