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Literary Devices In The Tell Tale Heart

Decent Essays

While the mad narrator quickly explains in detail that he killed the old man for none of the usual reasons but only because he could not stand the look of the man’s cloudy, pale blue eye, this short story illustrates how the inner conflict that the subconscious can inflict upon one’s self through the state of madness and an emotional breakdown and how a person’s inner turmoil and fear can drive him insane. American poet and writer, Edgar Allan Poe, in his short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” uses symbolism, figures of speech, imagery, and the setting of the story to reveal hidden morals and explain how the nameless narrator felt while plotting and carrying out the murder of an old man whom he cared for. His style, form, and tone in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a very important literary device that Poe uses to draw the reader’s attention. The intensity and tension within the story is shown in his style of repetition. Like many of Poe’s other writings horror and psychological terror is portrayed as one of his techniques to keep the reader in suspense. The narrator also adds to the overall effect of horror by repeatedly stressing to the reader that he is not a madman, and tries to persuade us of that fact by how carefully this brutal murder was planned and carried out. In his short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe provides his reader’s an insight into the mind of the narrator who tells his story of the calculated murder. The narrator’s purpose is to prove

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