Edgar Alan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

I am doing my essay on “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. I am going to tell you about the author and what he is greatly known for, next I will summarize the story and tell you the main themes and parts of the story that really play a big role in the story, then I will describe all the symbolisms in the story, and last I will prove that the deed drove the narrator insane more than he was already.

“True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in heaven and in the Earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” (Page 1, Poe). In the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” author Edgar Allen Poe explores insanity; and provides a study of paranoia and mental deterioration through an unreliable narrator. Throughout this macabre, sinister, narrative short story, the narrator attempts to convince readers of his sanity through creative tools of narration and pleas of sanity more to himself than to the reader. Written in 1843, this story follows a narrator that plots to kill an old man who he loves, but has a Evil Eye that vexes him. The narrator convinces himself that he is merely expunging the Evil Eye from existence and not just killing the old man. However, eventually, the narrator is overcome with guilt that he mistakes for triumph which ultimately leads to the narrator’s mental breakdown. Using multiple, visionary, writing techniques, author Edgar Allen Poe enthralls and beguiles the reader into the morbid and dark plot of the “Tell-Tale Heart” that is ingeniously enveloped in an eerie atmosphere.

A short story I have recentrly read which has an incident or moment of great tension is, "the Tell - Tale Heart," written by Edgar Allen Poe. The short story can produce many different "types" of characters. Usually, these characters are faced with situations that give us an insight into their true "character". The main character of the story is faced with a fear. He is afraid of an Old Man's Eye that lives with him. The actions that this charecter or "man" - as he is known in the story - performs in order to stop his fear can lead others to believe that he suffers from some sort of mental illness. The very fact that this man is so repulsed by the old man's eye, which he refers to as "the evil eye", is reason enough to be suspicious of

The narrator loves the old man but is haunted but the old man's “evil” eye. The narrator makes up his mind to kill the old man and to get rid of the eye. The text states,” 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 old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult.

Overall, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allan Poe is an astounding short story. Personification illustrated a sinister feeling through the whole story, making the reader feel uncomfortable

Edgar Allan Poe has a dark sense of literary meaning. Within "The Tell-Tale Heart" it 's shown when Poe incorporates dark elements of literacy through the guilt of a murder. Which became forced out by the hypothetical beating of a heart.

Short stories can be bland and boring. As you read some of them, you can feel emotion or just read a boring story about how something changed their life, but these three stories are interesting because they develop horror. These short stories use different elements to create horror. “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “A Rose for Emily,”, and “The Lottery” develop horror/gothic elements.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is about an unnamed man, whose agenda is to kill an old man because of his “vulture eye” (Poe 331). The narrator has nothing against the old man but is extremely bothered by the way his one eye looks. Throughout the story, the narrator tries to prove to the readers that he is not crazy, which leads me to believe that he subconsciously knows that he is. The narrator spends several nights watching the old man sleep. On the last night, the narrator awakens the old man while he is watching him. Instead of retreating he stays silently and unmoving in the darkness. He is aware that the old man is terrified and that he is trying to down play the noises he has heard. The narrator then convinces himself that he is hearing the beat of the old man’s heart. Out of fear that the sound of the beating heart will awake the neighbors, the narrator kills the man. The narrator then cuts the limbs off the old man, and hides them under the floor boards. At the end of the story, the narrator could easily get away with the murder, however ends up admitting what he has done to the police. He does this only because he believes that he hears the heart of the old man beating. This convinces me that the narrator is insane, even though he tries to convince the readers otherwise. Overall I thought “The Tell Tale Heart” was a compelling and horrific story. It was one of my favorite stories by Poe so far.

Even if one feels they may have 'gotten away ' with a crime, the weight of a person’s conscience cannot be concealed. In someone’s life, too much power and control combined with a person’s conscience in a person’s life can and will lead to an imbalance and perhaps insanity as in the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates how the narrator in this story goes through the greed and need for control, leading to his insanity that results in extreme guilt.

Concentration can lead to oblivion to things around people and can lead to devastating results. In the stories “The Oval Potrait” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” written by the famous Edgar Allen Poe,both main characters distraction in a physycal object leads to life changing effects. In the story "The Oval Portrait" a mad man painter driven by the beauty of art, paints his beloved oblivious to her plungeting health, killing her. The following comes a story named the “Tell- Tale Heart” in which the narrator is determined to kill an innocent man for the appearance of his eye the guilt further leading him to go insane and admit his candor confession of his horrible crime. Both characters share dedication, loss and faults of action linking to excessive pride.

In Class we have focused on many short stories, while analyzing each story we used the mental disorder sheet to sum up what disorder the characters from each story could possibly be suffering from. We can come to the conclusion that all of the stories we read in class contain some level of madness. For example in the short stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman & “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, both of the main character in these stories believe that they are perfectly wise, but their out of control behaviors proves that they’re mentally ill or to be more specific insane.

Even if one feels they may have 'gotten away ' with a crime, the weight of a person’s conscience cannot be concealed. In someone’s life, too much power and control combined with a person’s conscience in a person’s life can and will lead to an imbalance and perhaps insanity as in the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates how the narrator in this story goes through the greed and need for control, leading to his insanity that results in extreme guilt.

In the horror story written by Edgar Allen Poe called The Telltale heart, the narrator, a sneaky killer, is very unreliable. He twists the story to make him look like an average man, and not a psychopathic maniac. My first reason of this is the very beginning of the story when he says this; “Now at this point, fancy me mad. Mad men know nothing. But you should have seen me, how wisely I proceeded” (Poe 1). He already accused the reader of calling him mad. He is paranoid over nothing, so clearly he is hiding something from the reader.

So this guy hated this old man’s eye saying that it made his blood run cold, man talk about the cold stare, Fact: they eye is expressed as the eye of a vulture. On page 81 “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” This was the exposition of the story the Tell-Tale Heart. He hates the eye because he grieves it over and over again. Another quote on page 83 “With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once only once.” This was the climax of the story the Tell-Tale Heart. He said earlier that he didn’t hate the man he hate the eye. Because it made him sad, and it scared it him so he ended up killing him. And the falling action was when he buried the old man’s body. And the resolution was when he admitted to the victimless

Authors create mood in order to hook readers and influence them more. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Toni Cade Bambara’s “Raymond’s Run” all create mood. These texts use dramatic irony, situational irony, allusion, simile, and imagery to create mood.