After Death: study of the head of a corpse and The Tell-Tale Heart

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After Death: study of the head of a corpse, Theodore Garicault, 1819
Theodore Gericault became one of the most influential French artists during the Romantic period. He began to succeed early in his artistic career when his first painting, The Charging Chasseur, was displayed in a Paris Salon in 1812. This was just the start to his success in the arts. Only a couple years later, still youthful in the game of art, he painted Wounded Cuirassier, which displayed in the same salon in 1814. In 1819, Gericault painted a not so successful painting, After Death: study of the head of a corpse.
     
Edgar Allan Poe wrote in "The Tell-Tale Heart": “I talked more quickly -- more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men -- but the noise steadily increased. 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 boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder -- louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?”

Guilt is an emotional state in which a human being regrets an action that one completed, but believes that it should not have been done. This emotion also has the power to motivate human beings to make amends and attempt to fix what they feel guilty about. A person can be driven mad by the thoughts that go through their head, making them see and hear things that might not be there. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe displays a perfect example of the unique power that can almost control a guilty human entirely.

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