Edgar Allan Poe *spoilers*

[pathoftheturtle]

Hopefully this will turn into or be merged to an Official Discussion thread.
ATM, we need a place to crossover debate to, from another forum.

Perhaps the best tale of inside evil ever written is Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," where murder is committed out of pure evil, with no mitigating circumstances whatever to tincture the brew. Poe suggests we will call his narrator mad because we must always believe that such perfect, motiveless evil is mad, for the sake of our own sanity.
--Stephen King,
Danse Macabre

That's interesting that King saw it that way...I saw the narrator as more pathetic and pitiable than outright evil.

Uh... we may just have to agree to disagree...

I'm not saying Tell-Tale Heart's protagonist was excusable in his insanity, just that he wasn't "perfect, motiveless evil". He did have a motive, it just happened to be utterly delusional. I haven't read all of Poe's work yet, but I would say the protagonist from "Cask of Amontillado" was probably more evil in that he was in full control of his mental facilities.
"Poe suggests we will call his narrator mad because we must always believe that such perfect, motiveless evil is mad, for the sake of our own sanity." No, Poe suggests the narrator's mad because he's crazier than a shithouse rat, believes that the old man's eye is evil, and thinks that his his own heartbeat is in fact the old man's disembodied heart beating underneath the floorboard.

Now I think you’re proving SK’s point.

I would say the protagonist from "Cask of Amontillado" was probably more evil in that he was in full control of his mental facilities.

Revenge and the profit motive might be more comprehensible, but are they really more evil then random destruction? It’s a good thing that we may say one is excusable in his insanity in contemporary courts, but here we’re talking pure definition.

…Tell-Tale Heart's protagonist…believes that the old man's eye is evil…

Haven’t you ever experienced such a delusion? I have them all the time; I mostly keep the fact to myself, but I am really pretty freaking paranoid. lol
The fact remains that even if it were literally absolute truth that his eye was evil, it probably wasn’t necessary to kill the man.

…and thinks that his his own heartbeat is in fact the old man's disembodied heart beating underneath the floorboard.

Another Poe classic is Masque of the Red Death, in which poetic justice befalls an ignorant ruler. Like many of his works, its supernatural element may be interpreted symbolically… or literally.