Compare and Contrast: The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe and Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson

Running head: COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Compare and Contrast
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1COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Whether it is in the form of a poetry, short story and drama; Literature is a form of
entertainment that had been around from ages, entertaining people all round the globe. They
are usually written by different poets and authors in order to convey their amazing
imaginations, deepest feelings and desires. Each and everyone for sure have been exposed to
a literature genre in their life at some or the other point. This paper will elaborate on two of
such genre- “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
by Emily Dickinson. It will shed light on both the genre, comparing them in terms of their
themes and the way they deliver those themes.
The “The Black Cat” is a horror classic by Edgar Allan Poe. That offers a ominous
portrait of the home (Gregersdotter, Hallen & Hoglund, 2015). The main themes of the story
are transformation, justice and judgment, freedom and confinement, and violence. The
unnamed narrator of the story offers the readers a parade of violent actions. Eye gouging,
axing and hanging are some of the gruesome highlights in the story. Until the end, when
someone is murdered, the complete accounts of the violence are pivoted on the black cat, the
Pluto, who transformed from a pampered pet to a oppressive beast. The story is one of the
well-known claustrophobic tales of marital life that went wrong. It offers a clear
transformation from freedom to confinement. However, it is also to be noted that the
unnamed writer is writing sitting in a prison cell. Through this it can be sure that judgment
and justice, both are there in his mind. This story questions upon the ideas of justice and
judgment and reflects the turbulent and fraught state of the justice system prevailing in US, at
the time of Poe, when the rights for children, women, animals, African Americans, convicted
murderers and mentally ill were fiercely contested issues (Rogers, 2017). However, the
themes of this story revolves around the context that sin is a part of human nature and hence,
every man is attracted towards the actions of doing crime and wrong deeds. The author