Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

488 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analyze the character of the short story The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

In the story, "The Tell Tale Heart", written by Edgar Allen Poe, readers are lured into the story because they want to know more about the murder and it's result. They want to know more because it's a horror classical and draws in readers to know more. It begins with a theme that questions the reader and makes the reader immediately think about whether or not the narrator is reliable. It begins in paragraph one when the author states, "but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them." It later goes on in paragraph 2 to say, "It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the …show more content…

To kill someone because of their eye... It's just completely irrational. Also, to prove that the narrator is completely sanity, we can look in paragraph three where it starts talking about "how wisely I proceeded--with what caution--with what foresight--with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him." This just brings up a question. Why? Why would you kill someone because of their looks? However, this may be to add very much suspense suspense to the story. Lets think about it, if you killed someone because of their money, it would seem sensible, and understandable. But if you killed someone because of their eye, it would add a new element to the story. An element of suspense, which is what the author was trying to get. Especially when you only have a few characters. The old man, the man who committed the crime, and the police involved. This explains how much a character is needed in a horror story or movie/film because without a character, there story would be dull and very much the opposite of plausible. All in all, we can conclude by saying that Poe uses an unreliable narrator to set forth a theme of suspense which contributes to the story's

Show More
Related

  • The Role Of Structural Choices In Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    479 Words  | 1 Pages

    Edgar Allen Poe’s structural choices in “The Tell-Tale Heart” affect our understanding of the narrator and his actions. An example of this is the way he presents the main character. The main character appears to be unstable, and he killed an old man because of one of his eyes, which the main character refers to as “the vulture eye”. In the story, the character is talking about the murder of the old man after it happened; he is not narrating the story at the exact moment that it happened. You can tell that he is talking about it after it happened because the narrator says “you”, meaning that he is talking to someone, and is telling them the story. For example, in the story he said, “You should have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what caution—with

    Read More

  • The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe

    555 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado are two stories written by Edgar Allen Poe in the 18th century. Both of these stories are primarily focused on the mysterious and dark ways of the narrator. Since these stories were written by the same author, they tend to have several similarities such as the mood and narrative, but they also have a few differences. For instance, the characteristics of both narrators are different, but both stories portray the same idea of the narrator being obsessive over a certain thing.

    Read More

  • The Black Cat And The Landlady: Key Elements Of Gothic Literature

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    Suddenly there is something unknown in the plot and the ending of the story becomes less apparent. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the reader is not sure wheter or not the narrator will actually kill the man, or if he happens to be caught murdering. The narrator claims not to be mad, yet he still commits acts of terror towards others. This is an example of how mystery in gothic literature can make the feeler feel anxious. “The hellish tattoo of the heart increased.

    Read More

  • Insanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    The “Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and serves as a testament to Poe’s ability to convey mental disability in an entertaining way. The story revolves around the unnamed narrator and old man, and the narrator’s desire to kill the old man for reasons that seem unexplainable and insane. After taking a more critical approach, it is evident that Poe’s story is a psychological tale of inner turmoil.

    Read More

  • Perceptions of Human Nature in A Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    Human nature is a conglomerate perception which is the dominant liable expressed in the short story of “A Tell-Tale Heart”. Directly related, Edgar Allan Poe displays the ramifications of guilt and how it can consume oneself, as well as disclosing the nature of human defense mechanisms, all the while continuing on with displaying the labyrinth of passion and fears of humans which make a blind appearance throughout the story. A guilty conscience of one’s self is a pertinent facet of human nature that Edgar Allan Poe continually stresses throughout the story. The emotion that causes a person to choose right from wrong, good over bad is guilt, which consequently is one of the most ethically moral and methodically powerful emotion known to human nature. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe displays the narrator to be rather complacent and pompous, however, the narrator establishes what one could define as apprehension and remorse after committing murder of an innocent man. It is to believe that the narrator will never confess but as his heightened senses blur the lines between real and ...

    Read More

  • Insanity in The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" is a short story about how a murderer's conscience overtakes him and whether the narrator is insane or if he suffers from over acuteness of the senses. Poe suggests the narrator is insane by the narrator's claims of sanity, the narrator's actions bring out the narrative irony of the story, and the narrator is insane according to the definition of insanity as it applies to "The Tell Tale Heart". First, Poe suggests the narrator is insane by his assertions of sanity. For example, the narrator declares that he planned the murder so expertly he could not be insane. He says, "Now this is the point.

    Read More

  • The Tell-Tale Heart: An Analysis

    902 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Tell-Tale Heart: An Analysis In Edgar Allan Poe’s short-story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the storyteller tries to convince the reader that he is not mad. At the very beginning of the story, he asks, "...why will you say I am mad? " When the storyteller tells his story, it's obvious why. He attempts to tell his story in a calm manner, but occasionally jumps into a frenzied rant.

    Read More

  • Insanity In The Tell Tale Heart

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edgar Allan Poe uses the insanity of his narrator to create an unsettled feeling in the reader. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator has the readers on their toes. Humans have a tendency to not see the truth about their conditions, even when they are talking in detail about them. This is seen in "The Tell-Tale Heart" when the narrator starts by telling the reader "[t]he disease had sharpened [his] senses . . . not dulled them,"(1). The use of fear, the concept of sanity, and the dedication to detail the narrator, all provide insight about a world that some people might wish to do without.

    Read More

  • Symbolism and Irony in The Tell-Tale Heart

    2255 Words  | 5 Pages

    "The Tell-Tale Heart" consists of a monologue in which the murderer of an old man protests his insanity rather than his guilt: "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded . . ." (Poe 121). By the narrator insisting so emphatically that he is sane, the reader is assured that he is indeed deranged. E. Arthur Robinson feels that by using this irony the narrator creates a feeling of hysteria, and the turmoil resulting from this hysteria is what places "The Tell-Tale Heart" in the list of the greatest horror stories of all time (94).

    Read More

  • Point of view "Tell-Tale Heart"

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    Poe writes “The Tell Tale Heart” from the perspective of the murderer of the old man. When an author creates a situation where the central character tells his own account, the overall impact of the story is heightened. The narrator, in this story, adds to the overall effect of horror by continually stressing to the reader that he or she is not mad, and tries to convince us of that fact by how carefully this brutal crime was planned and executed. The point of view helps communicate that the theme is madness to the audience because from the beginning the narrator uses repetition, onomatopoeias, similes, hyperboles, metaphors and irony.

    Read More

  • Understanding Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart: Insanity or a Stroke of Brilliance

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    To begin the story Poe has a man who sets the scenery. The man sounds like he has a sound mind. But the narrator is trying to build his case for his sanity. The idea of the obsession that the narrator has with the eye of his employer builds to the question of whether or not this was a sign of a man who has an unstable mind or is it all just a ploy to get away with murder.

    Read More

  • The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    First off, Poe did an excellent job of hiding the physical identity of the narrator by not including a gender, name, age or even features of what the narrator looks like. Not being able to understand what the character looks like is a bit aggravating because knowing the gender you could come up with other possible motives for killing him other than his eye. The narrators relationship is never explained but we have to assume that he has some type of relationship with the old man. I think that was Poe's intention so the reader could have a complete understanding that people can commit crimes without having a reason. The narrator is not secretive when expressing his thoughts towards the old man. For example the narrator says " Object there was none. Passion there was none. I love the old man. He had never wrong me. He had never given me insult." (42 Backpack Literature). This quote was important to emphasize the point that the narrator had no real motive to kill the old man and all of his reasoning was hidden inside his head. Being secretive helps explain other ch...

    Read More

  • The Narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through the first person narrator, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" illustrates how man's imagination is capable of being so vivid that it profoundly affects people's lives. The manifestation of the narrator's imagination unconsciously plants seeds in his mind, and those seeds grow into an unmanageable situation for which there is no room for reason and which culminates in murder. The narrator takes care of an old man with whom the relationship is unclear, although the narrator's comment of "For his gold I had no desire" (Poe 34) lends itself to the fact that the old man may be a family member whose death would monetarily benefit the narrator. Moreover, the narrator also intimates a caring relationship when he says, "I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult" (34). The narrator's obsession with the old man's eye culminates in his own undoing as he is engulfed with internal conflict and his own transformation from confidence to guilt.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Mortality In Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    2009 Words  | 5 Pages

    The major theme in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of human’s mortality. The narrator’s use of particular adjectives, reference to time, and major events in story prove his obsession with mortality. Trying to convince himself that he is beyond deaths reach, the narrator in the end realizes death is unavoidable. Arguments that guilt or time are the main theme is over simplifying the story, guilt and time are points used to prove the bigger theme of human’s mortality. Whether or not the narrator is sane or insane does not affect the theme and should not be considered a theme in itself, as death comes to all no matter what mental state they are in.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of Poe's The Tell Tale Heart

    1651 Words  | 4 Pages

    Three elements of literary work that truly sum up the theme of The Tell Tale Heart are setting, character, and language. Through these elements we can easily see how guilt, an emotion, can be more powerful than insanity. Even the most demented criminal has feelings of guilt, if not remorse, for what he has done. This is shown exquisitely in Poe's writing. All three elements were used to their extreme to convey the theme. The balance of the elements is such that some flow into others. It is sometimes hard to distinguish one from another. Poe's usage of these elements shows his mastery not only over the pen, but over the mind as well.

    Read More

More about Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

Open Document