The Tell-Tale Heart How does the author make his story-telling effective?

The Tell-Tale Heart How does the author make his story-telling effective?

Edgar Allan Poe made this story special for the reader. It is a study

of paranoia

How does the author make his story-telling effective?

Edgar Allan Poe made this story special for the reader. It is a study

of paranoia and mental deterioration. First of all, he combines the

narrator and the protagonist. Poe writes this story from the

perspective of the murderer of the old man. When an author creates a

situation where the protagonist tells a personal account, the general

shock of the story is sharp. The narrator, in this particular story,

adds to the effect of horror by continually stressing to the reader

that he is not mad, and tries to convince us of that fact by how

carefully this brutal crime was planned and executed.. It is

surprising, because the criminals frequently deny their crimes.

The reader doesn’t know much about the protagonist, not even his name

or his sex, using only "I" and "me" in reference to his character. It

could as well be a young man or an old lady. While he tells his tale,

the narrator uses a cold and factual tone. He uses a lot of vocabulary

in reference with death and suffering, as to create an atmosphere

where the reader could feel uneasy, such as “Whenever it fell upon me

my blood ran cold.”

The narrator stresses the reader that he is not mad, and tries to

convince him of that fact by showing how carefully his crime was

planned and executed. “ You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you

should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded”

Moreover during the whole tale, he builds attempts to convince the

reader he’s not a madman but in fact, he seems more to be trying to

persua...

... middle of paper ...

...ology of the story to

show a scene from the past. By using these flashbacks, the author

manages, to express the confusion of the protagonist’s mind. Moreover,

Poe uses a gothic literary style, where story of darkness may happen

in a more everyday setting, such as the quaint house where the

protagonist goes mad from the "beating" of his guilt. Poe strips the

story of a river of detail as a way to intensify the murderer’s

obsession with the old man’s eye, the heartbeat, and his own claim to

sanity.

Allan Edgar Poe, wrote a strong story, with an unusual point of view.

Following, the criminal in his long way down to madness, and his

resistance towards the truth. He’s the one with a problem, not the

eye. But the reader is supposed to be convince at the end of his

speech that he’s not mad, but they finally, think he isn’t “just

nervous” as he says, but mad.