Aaron Cole

Period 4

Distorted Perception of
Reality

People with a distorted sense of reality do and think horrible things like killing
people, hearing voices and blaming others. They do these things because their
perception of reality
is distorted. This means they view things differently than other

people. Some people who fit this description are the narrators from the famous stories
The Black Cat and The Telltale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe. The narrator of The
Telltale Heart is more removed from reality then the narrator of The Black Cat because
he is sick and intentionally killed a person.
The narrator from the Telltale Heart is the most removed from reality. In the
Tell Tale Heart, a man narrates about his disease and his desire to remove an eye by
killing a man. On the first page the text states, "The disease had sharpened my senses
--not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all
things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I
mad?" That quote shows how the narrator is sickened by a disease and believes that he
can hear everything, suggesting to the reader that the narrators perception of reality
is being distorted.
The narrator from Telltale Heart is removed from reality and completely loses
his sanity. After the narrator kills a man, his mouth foams up and loses his control by
perceiving reality differently. The text states,
Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I
raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the
board's... That quote shows how the narrator loses his sanity and starts violently
thrashing around. His mouth foams and he loses his temper proving that his

perception of reality is distorted.

Some people might say that the narrator of the Black Cats perception of reality
is more distorted than the narrator is in the Tell Tale Heart. The Black Cats narrator
tortures animals that he loves, killed his wife and blamed it all on an evil black cat.
These reasons can be used to prove that the Black Cats narrator has a distorted sense
of reality. The text shows this in these lines, After reading my story you will see that I
am not crazy, but instead I am a poor victim, a man
haunted
and
doomed
by an evil
black cat... On page 167, bottom paragraph. That shows how he also makes himself the
victim and claims that all the blame belongs to an evil black cat.
The narrator of the Black Cat has a distorted perception of reality, but not
nearly as distorted as the narrator of the Tell Tale Heart. All the reasons that the
narrator of the Black Cat has a distorted perception of reality, are because of a
different reasons; he tortures animals
only
when under the influence of alcohol. His
wife did die at his hands, but it was an accident that he immediately regretted, also the
cat he blamed it on was the cause of his wife's death, so he had a right to blame it. His
only truly distorted quality is how he views hims himself as the victim, and even that is
common when people's lives fall apart. However in the case of the narrator of the Tell
Tale Heart, the text states,
I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I
had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and
continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! That shows how the narrator
in the Tell Tale Heart perceives a loud noise when in reality, there was no noise. That
perception of reality is far more distorted than merely perceiving yourself as the

victim. Which happens in real life situations after someone's significant others dies,
after the mental trauma known as survivor's-guilt, (perceiving yourself as the reason)
when the guilt becomes too much to bear.
The narrator in the Tell Tale Heart has a distorted perception of reality. The
narrator is ravaged by disease and thinks he is the sanest man in the world, and can
hear a dead mans heartbeat along with everything else in heaven and hell. The
narrator of the Tell Tale Heart has a more distorted perception of reality than the
narrator of the Black cat because the narrator of the Black Cats only distorted
perception is believing himself as the victim. Proving once and for all that the narrator
of the Tell Tale Heart has the most distorted sense of reality.

Work Cited
Poe, Edgar Allan.
The Black Cat
. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan.
The Tell Tale Heart
. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.