Read the excerpt from "The Tell-Tale Heart.”

Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
Read the excerpt from "The Black Cat.”

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates—the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

By revealing the narrator’s deepest thoughts, the author

A) increases the element of horror in the narratives.
B) reveals that these characters lack human emotion.
C) provides an upbeat moment and comic relief.
D) relies on a reliable narrator to tell the tale.

Both stories were written by American author and poet Edgar Allan Poe, and both talk are considered as horror stories (one of the main themes in Poe's works.) First one is the story of a crime and how it forces the narrator to tell the truth; the second one tells the story of a guy who kills a black cat, and then a second one appears and leads the story to horrible events.

Letter B is incorrect since both characters show human emotions (love and dying good); C is also wrong since these stories are solemn and don't get enough space for a comic relief; letter D is also incorrect since the stories are narrated from the first point of view. Letter A is correct since it shows how deep the emotions were in both narrators, and that their actions were considered from their deepest thoughts and were not just impulsive actions.