Literature Review and Comparison

             James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" is the story of a young jazz musician named Sonny, who lived in Harlem and gets addicted to heroin. He is arrested for using and selling drugs, and returns to his childhood neighborhood after his release from rehabilitation. After moving in with his older brother and his brother's family, the two brothers reconnect after a very tense few weeks during which both try to deal with their anger towards each other. Drugs are a central part of the story, but it's also about family, music, and trying to overcome life's struggles. The Poe story, "The Cask of Amontillado", is set in Italy and concerns the deadly revenge taken by the narrator on a friend who he claims has insulted him. Montresor tells the story of the night, half a century before, that he took his revenge on Fortunato, a fellow Italian nobleman. Angry over some unspecified insult, he plots to murder his friend during carnival when the man is drunk. These two authors use different plot structuring. Poe uses chronological present tense and Baldwin uses flashbacks. This makes the narration of each story very influential, the reader feel the situation and become personally acquainted with the thoughts and intentions of the main character.
             In "The Cask of Amontillado" the readers see a murder through the eyes of the murderer. The reader walks after the narrator, understands his intentions, sees the actual revenge – all this from the point of view of the murderer. This type of narration helps Poe to make the readers feel the horror of the situation and heighten the shocking ending. In "The Cask of Amontillado" the chronological order increase our fear of something terrible will, in fact, occur.
             The first-person narration style of "The Cask of Amontillado" is essential in creating the original quality of the story. The reason this is so important in this particular story, is because when a killer, Montresor, is
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