[Mr.Menard] Second Assignment (03.12.2012) ! :)

[Things to Consider for the Revision]

-      Elaborate my confession more and try to deliver how I felt towards a person who tried to be in the upper level of mentality than I am in.

-      Explain a motivation of the main character in <The Tell-Tale Heart> killing an old man who hadn’t done anything wrong.

[Revision]

For both of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories that we have gone through in class, I could understand the characters, and even agree with them in further. When looking at the novels on their surface, the narrators of the stories committed murder out of no reason. But when digging into a more fundamental layer of the novels, there is something deeper than that. I believe it is all about the natural hatreds of human beings: hatreds toward others who seem to be better than them. When human beings find those who are better than them in any sense, they start to grow angers, get anxious, and eventually hate them. The two stories, "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", not only deal with the original hatreds, but they also show the importance of rules in the world at the same time.

To start with, main characters in both "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" had a similar driving force that eventually led them to commit murder. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montreson got a revenge on Fortunato because Montreson was biased in dealing with Fortunato. Montreson took every single action of Fortunato as a negative aspect towards him because he felt inferior and thus jealous. Although that is not exactly what happens in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, they basically bear the same theme of jealousy. The main character in “The Tell-Tale-Heart” hated the old man’s eyes because he was jealous of the brightness of them. He was envious of the old man's eagle-like eyes and could not endure looking at them anymore, thus murdered him.

To be honest, I’ve been having the same kind of conception as the main characters for a long time. Though I’m not sure whether I really do get overly jealous, or I just think I do so, there’s one thing I can guarantee- I might have been just like Montreson in “The Cask of Amontillado”, if there was no rule existing in the world. There’s no law, no justice in the world of “The Cask of Amontillao”, and that’s how Montreson’s whole plan could work out so well. Whether it’s a biased revenge or not, at least I believe, the fundamental motive came out of Montreson’s unconsciousness because there was nothing to control him. It cannot be stated that there are less murder cases committed nowadays because we have laws, but it is true that the rate should have been worse if there were no rules existing.

Though it’s quite embarrassing to confess, I feel bad whenever I find another person who is similar to me or seems to be in the upper level of mentality compared to myself. Even if that person had not committed any wrongness on me, I feel as if he or she overly competes with me. Perhaps, that is because I feel competitive towards them, full of jealousy and anxiety. For Instance, when I first met my roommate Flora, I found her very similar to me, thus feeling insecure. I tried not to share any deep conversation with her because I thought she was being competitive and was trying to dig out my secrets. However, now I know, that was all my imagination.

Being jealous of someone else is definitely not a crime. But if that feeling grows so high that it reaches the level where you want to harm others, it is a crime. While admitting that jealousy is a natural consequence of life, we all would have to try not to jump over the proper line of doing so. We cannot always follow our instinct when it harms other people. Poe's two short stories, "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" both gave me a great chance to not only realize the deep cause of human hatred, but to also look back on myself and to try to be a more considerate person in dealing with people and in forming deeper relationship with them.