ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

Detailed explanation-2: -Throughout his life, Edgar Allan Poe lost the women he loved, including his mother, adoptive mother and wife, many to tuberculosis. Their absence played a huge role in his writing.

Detailed explanation-3: -The narrator of “The Black Cat” displays several attributes of madness-he maims an innocent cat, hangs it, kills his wife in a fit of temper, and finally hides her rotting corpse behind a brick wall.

Detailed explanation-4: -In The Tell-Tale Heart, madness is represented by the narrator’s ironic lack of awareness of his own insanity. Poe also uses verbal irony to show madness in this short story. The narrator discusses how he empathizes with the old man while he is planning to kill him.