Comparative Essay
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Comparative Essay
The Tell Take Heart is a short story that was written by an American poet Edgar Allan Poe and was first published in 1843. This story is related by an unnamed narrator who seeks to make the readers understanding of the narrator’s sanity while describing the murder that the narrator committed. Another story is the Spider the artist which was written by Nnedi Okorafor. The author of this book takes the audience back to Nigeria of the future where there is a Big Oil seeking to protect the pipelines by using Spider-like ALS, which are referred to as Zombies. Furthermore, the author describes the tale of the woman who encounters the most murderous machine when she was only armed with a guitar. Both of these short stories have various themes that have been used to present multiple elements. Some of the themes in these short stories are similar, but some are different.
One of the similar themes in the two short stories, The Tell Tale Take Heart and Spider the Artist is the theme of murder. In the story, the Tell-Tale Take heart, the theme of murder is evident whereby the narrator decides to murder the older man. The decision to kill the older man because he has a clouded, pale blue, vulture-like eye which causes a lot of distress to the narrator. The narrator insists on careful precision when committing the heinous act even though the narrator has confessed love for the older man. Therefore, the narrator jumps and smothers the man ultimately leading to his death (Serravalle de Sá, & Poe, 1843). In the story, “the Spider Artist,” the theme of murder has been brought up by the presence of Zombies in the Nigerian Villages. These Zombies are killing people who are found messing with the pipelines that have been developed at the Niger Delta (Kapstein, 2016).
The second theme that is similar in both the Tell-Tale Take Heart and Spider the Artist is the theme of human suffering. The theme of human suffering has bene presented in different ways in the two short stories. For instance, in the Tell-Tale Take Heart, human suffering is seen where the narrator has a disease that has rendered him insensitive (Serravalle de Sá, & Poe, 1843). On the other hand, human suffering is present in the Spider the Artist, whereby the village residents are suffering from the effects of oil exploration. Oil exploration has led to environmental degradation, which has resulted in water pollution (Kapstein, 2016). Therefore, human beings do not have clean water, and this causes health complications. For example, drinking polluted water has resulted in the drying of a woman’s womb while men are urinating blood.
As much as these themes are similar, some themes are different in the two short stories. The first them is the theme of guilt which is evident in the Tell-Tale Take Heart short story. After the narrator had killed the older man, he becomes guilty of his action. His conscience makes him confess he was the one who committed the act (Serravalle de Sá, & Poe, 1843). The other different theme is the theme of love which is evidence where the narrator claims that he loves the old. The narrator claims that even though he loves the older man, he will still kill him because of the distress he is causing (Serravalle de Sá, & Poe, 1843).
In the short story, the Spider the Artist, One of the themes that are different from the Tell-Tale Take Heart story is the theme of the technological revolution and its effect. In oil exploration, technology has been used whereby robots have been created to perform some of the tasks (Kapstein, 2016). The impact of the presence of these robots in oil exploration has replaced human labor, rendering them jobless and take away human society. Another theme present in this short story is the theme of vandalism whereby the “pipeline people’ resorted to destroying the oil pipelines. However, the Nigerian military deterred them with the help of foreign companies through the creation of Zombies (Kapstein, 2016).
Concluding, it is evident that in the two short stories, “the Tell-Tale Take Heart” and “Spider the Artist,” there are various themes that have been used to present the ideas of the short stories. Some of the themes are similar, while others are different. Murder is one of the themes that were similar in the two short stories as characters were taking away the lives of others. The other theme was human suffering since there were characters in the two stories that experienced a lot of problems. Lastly, various themes are different in the two stories, and one of them is guilt. In the short story, The Tell-Tale Take heart, the narrator feels guilty for killing the older man hence confesses. Another theme in the Tell-Tale Take heart was love where the narrator claimed he loves the older man but still killed him. In the Spider, the artist, the other theme present was technological advancement and its effect. The robots had been developed, and as a result, they are taking away human jobs. The next one was vandalism, where the pipeline people tried to destroy the oil pipelines.
References
Serravalle de Sá, D., & Poe, E. A. (1843). The tell-tale heart. Retrieved from: https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream/handle/123456789/132720/The_TellTale_Heart_ (Edgar_Allan_Poe_1843).pdf? Sequence=1