Tell-Tale Heart

Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

Fiction
          In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, the insane narrator blames a milky blind eye for driving him to murder. The narrator is the caretaker of an old man to whom the eye belongs. Night after night, the narrator watches the old man while he sleeps, waiting to kill the old man. One night, the old man stirs, the eye opens, and the narrator lashes out and kills him. After this, the narrator begins to hallucinate the beating of the dead man’s heart, which causes him to scream and rage.

Poe uses a lot of symbolism in the story. One symbol is the eye. The narrator refers to the eye as a “damned spot”. The phrase “damned spot” comes from the play Macbeth by Shakespeare. The phrase occurs when Lady Macbeth is overcome with guilt because of the part she played in King Duncan’s murder and she begins to imagine blood on her hands.  The narrator, too, feels guilty about his desire to murder the old man and the eye symbolizes his guilty conscience. The heart also represents the narrator’s conscience.  It beats to remind the narrator of what he did. The narrator’s conscience -- the heart and the eye -- remind the narrator of his responsibility to the old man. And it can be noted that the more the narrator tries to escape his responsibility to the old man by ignoring his conscience, the more obstinate it becomes. If the narrator had not denied his responsibility to the old man, the narrator wouldn’t have killed him, therefor avoiding his capture by the police and the consequences that would surely follow. Tell-Tale Heart is Poe’s way of saying that one should be responsible for one’s duties.

The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Science Fiction
Humans are the cause of destruction, as science constantly tells us. If all of humanity was wiped out, eventually the ecosystem would become balanced, pollution wouldn’t be a problem, and animals’ habitats would stop being destroyed. If humans hadn’t tried to expand, and then destroyed what was there before them in an attempt to become more powerful, the world wouldn’t be in such an awful state, as it is today. In The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury illustrates this in a collection of short stories giving an account of man’s colonization on Mars.  He points out the flaws in humanity and how they cause the destruction of humans and the world they live in.

One of my favorites is The Off Season.  In The Off Season, Sam Parkhill is overjoyed with the creation of his hot dog stand, he is positive that he will earn thousands of dollars, and all of Mars, and soon Earth, will be flocking to eat there. He is jubilant, euphoric, and giddy, almost to the point where the reader begins to hate Sam for his stupidity. For example he says, “Here’s the main highways, over there is the dead city and the mineral deposits. Those trucks from Earth Settlement 101 will have to pass here twenty-four hours a day! Do I know my locations, or don’t I?” That hatred grows when a Martian approaches Parkhill, and Sam promptly shoots him, convinced that he was going to attack, when the Martian really meant to tell him an important warning. More Martians come, and Sam’s hand doesn’t leave his gun. Bradbury uses Sam Parkhill as a symbol of the negative aspects of human beings, their self-centeredness, aggressiveness, and isolation.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

Fantasy

Many chefs describe cooking as and emotional outlet.  But where do the emotions go?  Does it go into their cooking?  One fateful day while Rose Edelstein is consuming a slice of her mother’s chocolate lemon cake she comes across a revelation.  Her mother’s homemade dessert tastes of hunger and loneliness. Soon, eating becomes unbearable for Rose, every meal a struggle as she tries to ignore the growing suffering of her mother. As Rose realizes the increasing pain in her family she uncovers secrets that would otherwise be kept hidden under layers of sadness.

Aimee Bender tells the story so subtly, very much how her characters deal with their own struggles.