Tell Tale Heart Annotation

Have you ever felt so irritated that you decided to do something about it? Do you ever regret what you did? The Tell Tale Heart is a famous short story created by Edgar Allen Poe. He had first published the short story in January 1843, in The Pioneer magazine. Poe’s of strong diction, detailed imagery, and figurative language creates the tone of menace in the story, The Tell-Tale Heart.
The use of diction is very strong and useful towards the tone of menace. “ Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrusted it in!” (203) As shown above the author included the word cunningly, which includes a different feeling or connotation than a common word like cleverly or carefully. Cunningly surrounded by feelings of many traits not just like

one like I’ve said before carefully or cleverly. Also, the fact that the narrator, Madman could and would think that we would laugh at how he sneaked into the Old Man’s room to kill him creates menace. Furthermore, as the Madman explains how wise he is compared to a normal Madman, “ And this I did for seven long nights-- every night just at midnight--but I found the eye always closed; for it so impossible to do the work; for it wasn’t the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” (203) “Vexed” meaning annoyed, angry, or worried. The word of “vexed” helps the story build up strongly on its diction because it gives us so much things to look at you actually have to find out how annoyedvexed or in what kind of an annoyed vexed feeling he has, is it mad, annoyed, or is it worried. Which increases menace throughout the story. “ It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage” (204) The narrator's fury increases as the heart beat increasing his nerves of killing the old man. The words fury and stimulate mean more than increasing and anger it can mean reviving, sparking, or triggering and anger, wrath, or rage creating that menace of how the narrator is feeling. Therefore the diction helps the tone of menace.
The use of Poes detailed imagery helps create the tone of menace in the story.

“One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” (203) The picture of the vulture creates a dark and scary menacing tone. It describes and helps the reader how and what the Old Man’s eye looks like and how evil and weird that eye is. “And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it-- oh so gently! And then, when I made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head.” (203) This piece of evidence shows a tone of menace because Poe describes vividly how he goes into the Old Man’s room so he can kill him. He uses his vivid description to lure the reader into the room with him and show him how “cunningly” he went into the room. “But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye.” (204) As shown above, Poe shows menace through the narrator's choice of sneaking in the Old Man’s room. This creates the tone of menace because the image of that murder makes it easy to imagine yourself as the narrator and feeling what he

does.
Finally, the figurative language in the tell tale heart conveys to the tone of menace. “All in vain because death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim.” (204) In the quote Poe uses personification to exaggerate and express “Death” as person creating the sense that he goes around everywhere and kills people which creates the menacing tone. “True nervous very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am but why will you say I’m mad?” (203) The narrator uses foreshadowing in that piece. The foreshadowing helps develop its menacing tone because it keeps the reader flowing and continuing the story to find how insane and how he is mad. “I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out who's there?” (204) Poe uses hyperbole in the sentence above. The hyperbole helps create the tone of menace because it expresses and exaggerates the freight of the Old Man when he “sprung” up.
The menacing tone in the tell tale heart is created by the strong diction, detailed imagery, and figurative language. Up to what extent have you gone to, to get rid of your anger?