This is a great essay question. Please congratulate your
teacher for delivering such a thought-provoking
assignment.
I immediately thought of two Edgar Allan Poe
short stories that would probably fit these requirements: "The Cask of Amontillado" and
"The Tell-Tale Heart." In both stories, Poe uses psychological terror to torment his
victims. However, the deaths of the murdered men come in quite different ways. In
"TT-TH," the narrator attacks and kills the old man before gruesomely dismembering the
body. In "TCOA," Montressor inflicts death upon Fortunato in a much less violent manner,
virtually without touching his doomed enemy. Although we never know for sure how or when
Fortunato dies, it comes bloodlessly; he may die of a heart attack from the shock of his
sudden predicament, or he may slowly die of starvation within the walled recess of the
catacombs. In both cases, Poe describes the murders in a most calm and matter-of-fact
manner, which adds to the creepy feel of both classic stories.
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