How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Symbols In The Tell Tale Heart

There are many writing techniques/crafts that authors write about in their story. For example, stories could have metaphors, flashbacks/flash forwards, or tone. But, in the story The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe uses symbolism, revealing actions, and descriptive language to show why the narrator wants to kill the old man.

“The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allan Poe, is a petrifying short story. Poe incorporated a variety of literary elements to intimidate the reader. Personification, theme, and symbols are combined to create a suspenseful horror story.

Both Poe and Hawthorne used symbolism to tell their stories. In The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe uses a number of symbols such as the old man’s eye and heart. The narrator compares the old man’s eye to the eye of a vulture. It seems dull with something like a film over it, obscuring clear vision, but at the same time it has power over the narrator. He states that the old man’s eye “the eye of a vulture….whenever

Many authors often use symbolism to express a deeper meaning. They use the symbols to connect an unrelated thought or feeling into their literary work they are writing. Edgar Allan Poe frequently uses this literary device in his works. Symbols are many times seen in his poems and in his short stories. Many symbols are evident in Poe’s works “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Black Cat.” Because Poe’s works are typically dark, his use of symbols is in a dark way. Although there are many types of symbols manifested in these stories, Poe’s works generally include a symbol that eludes death or the end of something and many include references of sight and vision.

"The idea of the protagonist fighting a counterpart occurs so often in Poe's works that critics often suggest that it indicates Poe's attempts to work out, through his writings his own inner conflicts" (Chua 350.) In the short story, the nameless narrator attempts to defend his normality, yet he confesses to murdering an old man. He has nothing against this man except, his pale blue eye. In John Chua's critique, "Critic Charles E. May, however, he interprets the 'eye' bit as an organ of vision but as the homonym of 'I.' Thus, what the narrator ultimately wants to destroy is the self, and he succumbs to this urge when he could no longer contain his overwhelming sense of guilt" (Chua 351.) This irrational fear creates the conflict and leads to the narrator's decision to kill the man. He watches the old man sleep every night for a week. On the eighth night the man hears the narrator and wakes up. The narrator remains in the dark room for hours until he eventually acts on his temptation, screams, and murders the old man. He carefully dismembers the body and hides him underneath the floorboards. Three police men knock on the door, after convincing the officers nothing bad happened they sit down to chat. Suddenly, the narrator hears a noise that gets louder and louder until the narrator freaks out. At that moment, he confesses to murdering the old man and shows them where he hid the body.

The life of Edgar Allan Poe can be best described as very dark and and it seems as if he was a very disturbed man. The types of topics he writes about are love, death, and darkness. In all his writing, darkness is one of the main points. Death always occurs in most of his writing, and revenge is always the reason. The author uses foreshadowing and symbolism to create an eerie mood that reveals a theme of death being inevitable.

Poe uses symbolism in his stories to connect with the reader’s lives and to show the readers a lesson. The story “The Tell-Tale Heart” has the symbol of an eye that the narrator obsesses over. The old man’s eye represents judgment and how it can easily make you crazy and obsessive, as it did to the narrator. The narrator felt so attacked by the eye that he decided he needed to kill the old man. A similar symbol was the masked figure in “The Masque of the Red Death” and how Prince Prospero obsesses over it to the point where it leads him to death. The masked figure was a personified version of death and when Prince Prospero realized it had entered his castle, he felt threatened. This masked figure killed Prince Prospero, because he was not cautious enough and acted on his emotions. Poe explains, “a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold,” (74). The old man’s eye made the narrator feel judged and uncomfortable but he doesn’t realize he is the only one who sees the eye as evil. When he says , “ whenever it feel upon me, my blood ran cold” he is saying how he feels like he is being judged and how the old man was watching him with disapproval. Poe is telling us that it is not the person who is judging us, but our conscience telling us that they are being judgemental. We shouldn’t let our conscience get to us and we shouldn’t feel so insecure about how people look at us, for it may drive us

The author purpose of telling this story is not about murder but more like convince about his sanity. The narrator start his story by saying he is super nervous but how do they know that he’s mad. Edgar Allan Poe is saying that how do we know he’s mad if we don’t know a person’s mind or feeling. So the purpose of the authors point is to convince us that the narrator has a disorder and act normal when he’s around the old man. Next, act in strange way when the old man is not looking. Like for example he examplains in the story “The tell-tale heart” “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually”. This quote not just explains his feeling about the old man eye but his anger and madness to kill him. According to Witherington Paul hi states in his source The Accomplice in The Tell-Tale Heart explains that” The verdict of madness, however come less from the story itself than from our commonly held assumptions that all obsessive murders are mad and that their madness is easily recognizable.” This quotes to me means that madness is easy to identify by observing a person behaver or his way of thinking. At last, I do think he may have had an illness that made him want to kill the old man.

During the day he was never kinder towards the old man, but at night he was planning to kill him behind his back. This makes the reader dread for the old man. The last character that Poe uses to create fear and dread in the story is the old man. The old man is completely oblivious to what the narrator is planning to do to

The reason the narrator has for murdering the old man is one of his eyes. “He had the eye of a bird, a vulture -- a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell on me, my blood ran cold; and so -- very slowly -- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and free myself of the eye forever.” (Poe 1). The eye represents the essence of the old man, it being the one defining quality that set him apart (Miksanek 2).

Another one of Poe 's later works that uses the tool of personification is a personal favorite, The Tell-Tale Heart. This was another Gothic-style and horror writing that Poe was famous for. It also plays a considerable amount of personification writing style. Again Poe uses first person narration in this work to place himself in the story. The Tell-Tale Heart tells of Poe murdering an old man whom he had no prior qualms about. The old man had done nothing to him and he knew of that. Poe murders the old man and buries him in the flooring of the house. Poe describes that he does not hear the beating of the old man 's heart anymore after the old man died. However as time moved on, he could hear beating sounds. While trying to debunk the sounds as nothing but mice in the floor of the house, he eventually starts to think otherwise. Despite all of his debunking of what it could possibly be, the sounds of the beating begin to taunt and torment Poe. The final paragraphs of the short story shows the torments that the beating does to Poe. As the torments continue, Poe comes to realization that the beating sound was the very heart of the old man that he had murdered. The final line signifies what the heart is supposed to personify.

Poe's work is so visually understanding that it feels realistic. In his work he describes the setting with such assurance, it conjures up the setting with exceptional descriptive. In the "Tell-Tale Heart," Poe describes that the old man's eye is, "All a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones." Poe uses this to

In The Tell-Tale Heart the narrator speaks of an old man that he was actually quite fond of, but needed to kill simply because of his haunting pale blue eye. He insist he’s not insane, but it's quite obvious he is. Earlier it was mentioned how the eye is a popular symbol, and it has the same meaning in The Tell-Tale Heart that it does in The Black Cat. The old man’s eye can seemingly see right through the narrator's social character and straight into his inner beast, something everyone possesses. He spends an entire week sneaking into the old man’s apartment, just watching and waiting for the right moment to attack. After finally killing the old man, he hides him in in the floorboards of the home. The police arrive after a call from an alarmed neighbor, and all is going well until the narrator believes he hears a heartbeat. The heartbeat symbolizes the conscious, seeing as neither the police officers can hear it.”Louder! Louder! Louder! It is the beating of his hideous heart!” It’s as if the narrator's conscious is driving him out of his mind. It really shows Poe’s believes in duality and how every human is an evil being plagued with a conscious. No matter how hard one can try to bury their wrong doings, the conscious will always reveal the beast’s wrongdoings.”Villains! I shrieked, ‘dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here! Here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!” His

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” was one of the author’s early works. It’s a chilling confession of murder by the narrator, who seems to show no discernable reason or remorse for his actions. There’s many elements to this story, but one that’s often repeated is the sound of a heartbeat. While he’s waiting to commit the murder, he hears the heart. During the murder and after, he hears the heart. This is such a central part to his story that he mentions it multiple times, and describes how loud it grows. The sound grows so loud that he seems to go insane and cause a scene with the police officers. Many see the heart as a sign of guilt, but in this case it represents a need for a person or their ideas to be acknowledged; a want for awareness to be brought to their actions, ideas, emotions, wants.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a twisted tale that was written by Edgar Allen Poe. The story is world renown for sending shivers down reader’s spines after reading the story. This is especially true when the story is read aloud as it will make you jump out of your seat. The narrator tells the story of how he murdered the old man he lived with, how he buried him under the floorboards, and how he almost got away with it. Poe uses vivid imagery to instill the picture of the murderous scene that takes place inside of the old man’s house. The best example of when he does this is when he describes the old man's eye. “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. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 52). Deep vivid imagery is classic component of the Tell Tale Heart and any other Poe work for that matter. This Pale blue eye the narrator describes so vividly is also the reason why he feels compelled to kill the old man. This makes it evident that the narrator clearly suffers from some sort of mental disorder. While crime is crime, As sick as the narrator may be people should take into the consideration the severe mental disorder the narrator suffers because insanity in the past had a different definition than it does now, the