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The literary techniques of edgar allan poe
The literary techniques of edgar allan poe
Two kinds of literary analysis questions
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When left alone with our thoughts, we lose the ability to escape the darkness our minds are capable of creating. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe illustrates how a person’s inner battle can drive him insane through focusing on the characterization established through the thoughts and actions of a single character. Waiting and watching in the shadows, a vacuous young man brutally murders an old friend over his hatred for the man’s vulture eye. Despite his deteriorating mental state, the man is almost successful with getting away with his crime.
Edgar Allan Poe uses repetition to show the young mans’ need to prove his innocence. The young man insists he is innocent and begin to build his defense by creating a reason for his actions. Why would any sane person kill a friend? He states that “Yes, I have been ill, very ill. But why do you say that I have lost control of my mind” (Poe 1). He admits to being sick, however, he does not admit to his inability to control his mind. The man pushes for the reader to see his innocence. He continues to repeat phrases like
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“that I am mad?” (Poe 1) and “I am not mad” (Poe 1) to reassure himself rather than the reader. He needs reassurance for the justification for his action. He was never mad at nor wanted anything from the old man. In fact, he “even loved him” (Poe 1). If he realizes he killed the man for no reason, it would be harder to admit and take responsibility for. Towards the middle of the story, the repetition switches to the “beating of the old man’s heart” as it begins to drive the young man insane (Poe 3). The obsession of the eye transfers to an obsession of the heartbeat. This obsession over the heartbeat consumes him as he kills the old man. All he could focus on was the “sound [growing] louder” (Poe 3). He does not hear the shrieks of the old man, yet these shrieks attract the attention of his neighbors. Although the beating stopped, the beating resumed during the police’s visit. Confessing to the murder, he asks the men “why does his heart not stop beating” (Poe 4). The repetition of the heart beats highlights his guilt towards his horrendous act. The beating only appears when he is committing the murder and when he is close to getting away with it. Edgar Allan Poe associates the heartbeat with time.
Entering the room, he points out that “the hands of a clock move more quickly than did my hand” (Poe 2). He becomes anxious knowing he was going to finally commit to his plan. He will no longer have to endure the eye staring at him. Before declaring the noise as a heartbeat, he remarks that the sound he began to hear was “like the sound of a clock heard through a wall” (Poe 3). Waiting for the right time to attack, time slows down. The young man stands in anticipation until he sees the man’s vulture eye. After the attack, he waits patiently on top of the man. When he believes he has completed his goal, he “[takes] away the bedcovers and held [his] ear over his heart” (Poe 3). The man believes will no longer be troubled. Even though the old man is dead and he can no longer hear the heartbeat, he needs to ensure, without a doubt, the man is
dead. To some critics, like John Chua or Charles May, the two characters are one person slit to two different personas. John Chua uses “The Fall of the House of Usher” as an example to explain Poe’s uses of a doppelganger. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the brother and sister share an unnatural bond. At times, they could sense when the other was around and their lives seemed to depend on the existence of the other (Chua). Similar connotations are implied about the two men in “A Tell-Tale Heart”. For instance, the young man insists that he could hear “the beating of the old man’s heart “(Poe 3). At first, it is interpreted as his own, yet, he “knows” the fear he had instilled and the thoughts of the old man as he sat in the bedroom. He can tell the old man knew something was going to happen, even if he couldn’t see him waiting in the dark. The man has a connection to the old man, which enables him to know the man’s thoughts and feelings. After killing him, the man assumes it will be over. He believes the heartbeat will stop and the eye could no longer stare at him. Yet, despite the old man being dead and hidden beneath the floorboards, the young man continues to hear the heart beat during the police’s visit. Other than the noise complaint, which he successfully creates an excuse for, the police never suspect a thing. During their inspection, nothing questionable evidence shows up. When showing them around the house, he said that he told them to “look through the whole house, telling them to search it all, to search well” (Poe 4). The young man believes he is playing a game with them. When they find nothing, he thinks he is clever for outsmarting them. However, Chua states that since the “police [find] no trace of the old man”, the old man “[exists] only in the narrator’s mind”. The old man is a part of his subconscious that became a “real” person. He creates his alternate persona. Along with the fact that he was able to dismember the man without getting blood on the floor, it becomes more and more evident that the old man is never actually there. This is how he is able to happily let the police come in to search around and not panic about what he is hiding. The young man develops an obsession over the older man’s eye, which he claims as his motivation for wanting to kill the old man. He insists that the eye sends a “cold feeling” down the man’s spine when it stares at him (Poe 1). However, the old man, being blind in one eye, does not know what his eye is looking at. The paranoid young man wants to do nothing but destroy the vulture eye. When thinking of the eye, states that it reminds him of a vulture eye, which he describes as “ the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies, then fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it” (Poe 1) . Choosing a dark and horrid description like this juxtaposes his earlier statement claiming the man is a friend. This establishes that the man truly hates only the eye and not the man. Charles E. May claims the eye actually means “I” which supports the theory that the old man is an apparition created by the young man’s mind. It is not the actual eye he is so focused on destroying, rather, a part of himself he does not like. Poe creates a paradox where the young man wishes to destroy himself, yet at the same time, is trying to save himself. By creating this paradox around “I”, Poe is able to connect support the need for a doppelganger. Using the setting, Poe helps the readers determine the ominous and fearful mood. Spending most of his time standing in the old man’s bedroom, the young man describes the darkness of the man’s room as “thick and black” (Poe 2). It is not until he is hiding in the darkness that anything is said about the room. The man relies on the darkness to hide him from the old man as he waits to surprise him. Every night, the young man would “[stand] there quietly” (Poe 2) and “looked in at him as he slept” (Poe 2). The man did this for eight nights. However, on the last night, the old man is awakened by the noise of the door. For most, their house is considered to be their “safe place”. Yet, the old man has his sense of security taken away as the young man stays in the room saying nothing. The old man has become vulnerable as he lays frozen with fear. The young man fills with a sense of power knowing he is the one responsible for this reaction. It is not until he sees “that eye, that hard blue eye” (Poe 3) which caused his “body [to become] like ice” (Poe 3). His pride is replaced with anger. Returning to his original plan, the man attacks, taking the old man by surprise The tone is oddly solemn for a man experiencing a mental break. The man is not enthusiastic about his new freedom from the eye and heartbeat nor enraged at his commitment to killing his friend. If anything, he is relieved. He no longer has to bother with the old mans’ eye looking at him or the sound of the man’s heart beating consume his thoughts. This is not the usual the way someone acts after murdering somebody close to them. He seems almost fine with what he did. Believing he has justification for his actions, he is not filled with regret. Under the circumstances, he believes he is innocent. Free of guilt, he does not worry about what can happen if someone finds out. It is not until the end that he confesses. However, it is not fueled by guilt, rather the return of the old man’s heartbeat. By focusing on a single character, Poe effectively justifies how a person’s inner battles can drive them to insanity. He is able to apply indirect characterization and symbolism for the reader to better understand the actions of a seemingly simple man who is battling a mental illness.
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.
The Tell-Tale Heart is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s shortest of short stories; it is both a convoluted and equivocal explanation of a madman’s paranoia resulting in what he considers to be a fully rational murder. This piece contains very little dialogue between the characters, yet the narrators voice is disproportionately strong and ostensible. Throughout the story, the narrator attempts to persuade the audience into believing that his is not insane by justifying his irrational behavior, through the use of symbolism and language. Although under dissimilar circumstances, Poe utilizes this technique in a number of his works, John P. Hussey remarks, “Poe created a series of rhetorical characters who try to persuade and guide the readers to particular ends.” (Zimmerman, Rhetoric & Style). While Poe
In Edgar Allen Poe’s classic short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” an impression of apprehension is established through the fear-induced monologue of an unknown narrator. Right from the beginning of this short story, Poe prepares the reader for a horrific tale by way of the narrator admitting to the audience that he has, “made up my mind to take the life of the old man” (41). The narrator not only admits to this heinous crime, he proclaims that he had done so out of complete ‘sanity’ and proceeds to inform the audience, “and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story” (41), as he feels this will justify his atrocious crime. The narrator’s assurance of sanity is swiftly demolished as their mania takes control of the way they explain their actions. This obvious foreshadowing forces the audience to surpass the dreadful details and look for the remarkable facets of Poe’s short story allowing the setting of the
Poe's narrator sees that he is a Master with good powers of observation.” There are some psychological issues with the narrator, there are instances where the narrator tells the reader if they think he is a mad man. “Why will you say I am mad” (Poe) the narrator is empathizing that as the reader, they are the ones who are wrong. The narrator believes that he is right; therefore, the heart beating and the eye watching him proves to him that he is not psychotic. While as the reader, they know that him murdering an innocent old man based upon his eye is in fact
Edgar Allan Poe utilizes a wide range of methods to entice the reader into his piece, “The Tell-Tale Heart”. The storyline follows the events of a murder of an old man, in the perspective of the killer who claims he is mentally stable. The writer uses syntax, focusing on sentence length, and tone to emphasize that the narrator is not truly stable, thus not being a reliable perspective.
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".
Poe's story demonstrates an inner conflict; the state of madness and emotional break-down that the subconscious can inflict upon one's self. In "The Tell-Tale Heart", the storyteller tells of his torment. He is tormented by an old man's Evil Eye. The storyteller had no ill will against the old man himself, even saying that he loved him, but the old man's pale blue, filmy eye made his blood run cold.
Poe reinforces issues of morality in "The Tell-Tale Heart" through the state of madness. In this story, Poe provides an analysis of paranoia and mental worsening or deterioration. Poe distributed this story in great detail to intensify the murderer’s (i.e. It’s ironic how the narrator loves the old man, but the narrator compassionately plans to kill the old man because of his evil eye. This situation underscores virtue through the contradiction in how the narrator plans to kill the old man but he somehow has affection towards the old man.
Edgar Allen Poe was an American Writer who wrote within the genre of horror and science fiction. He was famous for writing psychologically thrilling tales examining the depths of the human psyche. This is true of the Tell-Tale Heart, where Poe presents a character that appears to be mad because of his obsession to an old mans, ‘vulture eye’. Poe had a tragic life from a young age when his parents died. This is often reflected in his stories, showing characters with a mad state of mind, and in the Tell Tale Heart where the narrator plans and executes a murder.
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.
The Tale Tell Heart” is a short story in which Edgar Allen Poe, the author, illustrates the madness and complexity of an individual. The unnamed narrator, who is Poe’s main character, is sharing his story of him murdering an old man on the sole reason of his dislike for his filmy blue eye, which reminds him of a vulture. He meticulously plans the murder of this old man, and attempts to cover up the act through his twister persona. In the "Tell-Tale Heart", Poe uses satire, imagery, and symbolism to portray how startlingly perverted the mind of the narrator is and how guilt always prevails.
In “The Tell Tale Heart” Edgar Allan Poe builds up suspense by guiding us through the darkness that dwells inside his character’s heart and mind. Poe masterfully demonstrates the theme of guilt and its relationship to the narrator’s madness. In this classic gothic tale, guilt is not simply present in the insistently beating heart. It insinuates itself earlier in the story through the old man’s eye and slowly takes over the theme without remorse. Through his writing, Poe directly attributes the narrator’s guilt to his inability to admit his illness and offers his obsession with imaginary events - The eye’s ability to see inside his soul and the sound of a beating heart- as plausible causes for the madness that plagues him. After reading the story, the audience is left wondering whether the guilt created the madness, or vice versa.
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.
Poe uses the protagonist in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ to show how an unstable and disturbed mind can lead to evil. “For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture-- a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (Poe 885). The protagonist focuses on the old man’s flawed eye, and he believed that it gave him a reason to murder him. This shows that he is not a sane or rational person because he wants to kill an innocent man over a problem that he cannot fix. This signifies broken human nature. “Never before that night, had I felt the extent of my own powers-- of my sagacity” (885). This quote suggests that sinning makes the protagonist feel powerful. This shows that humans can find satisfaction in
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe is a short story that dives into the mind of an insane man. The story only features five characters. There is an old man with a blue eye, the crazed killer, and three police. The story is narrated by the nameless murderer. It is his attempt to justify his behavior and to prove to the reader that he is not crazy. As the story goes on you come to the realization that he is actually insane. The characters in this story are complex, interesting, and elaborate.