Point of view is important to any story, because it creates the mood and setting of a piece. The narration and characters play just as important a part. Authors use varying styles of narration in an effort to gain the readers attention and every author has his or her own style in accomplishing this. In comparing the point of view and narration of "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edger Allen Poe and "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka we see extreme differences in each.
             In "The Tell-Tale Heart" Poe uses a first person point of view to create suspense and tension, while letting the reader try to discover the thoughts of the narrator "very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my sense – not dulled them." [36] Kafka, in the story "The Metamorphosis," uses third person omniscient to get his point across "What has happened to me? he thought." [346] Poe prefers the unreliable, complex, and frequently contradictory narrator in Tell-Tale Heart where Kafka tells the story through the mind of Gregor, a more reliable narrator, but not in the first person.
             Both authors rely on very different characters in their stories. Poe uses a round character to intrigue and make the reader enter the mind of the lunatic to understand his reasoning. "and now have I told you what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses? – now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound" [37] This unreliable narration continues throughout the story. Kafka uses multiple characters in his story. Grete, the mother and father become openly moved characters while Gregor remains round. His complexity is limited to the metamorphosis that takes place and his realization that he is now alone "Nor did anyone harass him, he was left entirely to himself." [375] Each story of course has other characters involved, but thes
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