Supernatural Elements Of Horror

Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story about a insane narrator which tries and eventually kills the old man, the narrator is his waiter, because of his vulture eye. In this story, readers feel curious and shock because of the dramatic and situational irony. First, Poe uses dramatic imagery to make the reader feel suspense. The mood is created when the narrator becomes determined to kill the old man because of his vulture eye, thus the reader knows the narrator wants to kill the old man, but the old man doesn’t know about it. ”I made up my mind to take the life of the old man” (Poe ) This make the reader feel suspense because it makes the reader like the old man’s hands are tied because he can’t overpower the narrator and he’s unaware of the narrator’s intention. Furthermore, Poe uses situational irony to create a mood of shock. The mood is created when the police officers knock on the old man’s door and come to investigate because of the narrators shriek, and the narrator started hearing the old man’s heartbeat, yet it grew louder and louder until he thought that the police officers are hearing the heartbeat and are mocking the narrator, so the narrator couldn’t take any more and admitted

Many murder investigations lead in killers pleading over their innocence to the crime they’ve committed. However "A Tell-Tale Heart", does not follow the same stereotypical scenario. The usual story of the innocent killer getting caught takes a quick turn when the narrator tells all that he is guilt. All the while he is still claiming that he is still sane and that he was completely aware of his actions. Poe spins the entire narration into a dark, eery place when the read is unsure of their role in the story. Poe uses ethos to explain how he lures people into continuously reading his stories, Logos to show exactly how he does and uses Pathos to demonstrate how nonsensical the crime was.

Horror is ingrained in human society, in our movies, in our music, in our stories. Horror is inescapable; it surrounds us, it envelops us. Horror is part of being human; in fact, the definition is being frightened or disgusted. There are two short stories, which truly fit this definition of horror, Going to Meet The Man by James Baldwin and The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. Going to Meet The Man by James Baldwin and The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe utilize too very different forms of horror, Baldwin using vivid, disgust-provoking imagery, and Poe using terror to provoke fear, however both incorporate a similar theme, that man is capable of horrible atrocities.

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.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” tells the story through the words of the madman, who killed a man to rid himself of his eyes. After completing the deed, the madman confessed to the police who came to investigate a report of a scream because he feared he could still hear the man's heartbeat. The suspense in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is created through repetition and twisted dialogue, where the narrator repeats phrases to warn the reader of a decision or event before it happens, and poorly disguises intents in a way that lets the reader distrust the sanity of the speaker. For example, Poe repeats this phrase from page 92 “It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.” on page 94.

When you think of a horror story you think of getting scared or feeling tension, both things that you should experience when reading a horror story and that “the Tell-Tale Heart” does really well. Additionally, “the Tell-Tale Heart” is a story written by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the greatest horror writers, it was also published in 1843 and is one of the greatest and most unique stories I have read. As what makes the story very great and unique is how the author uses realism to scare the reader because it can happen to anyone. This is what Edgar Allan Poe was thinking when he said “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality” which means that you won’t be very scared from a fictional story, as a realistic

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.

One of the theme’s more prevalent themes that present it’s self in the Tell-Tale Heart the theme of is insane verses sane. This theme is one of the central themes in the story. You can see this in the first sentence of the story in which the person says “True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am but why will you say that I am mad” (Poe, 331). The more the man tries to convince the people he is retelling the story that he is sane the more it shows how very much insane he actually is. When he tells the story of the old man that he murdered he tells it calmly and remorseless. He states in his retelling that he did not hate the old man or that he wanted the old man’s wealth when he murdered him. He says the reason he murdered the old man is that his one eye which was pale with a film over it resembled an eye of a vulture. (Poe, 331) Then he says “Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you

However, what you may not realize is that there is a significant difference between classic horror novels and horror movies such as The Shining. For the most part, these novels manage to be scary and thought provoking without extreme violence or gruesome scenes. In HP Lovecraft’s The Outsider, the monster is described as “a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable.” Instead of using blood and gore, Lovecraft describes the monster vividly without providing details. This makes it even better when you realize the monster is the narrator looking into a

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a first-person narrative short story that showcases an enigmatic and veiled narrator. The storyteller makes us believe that he is in full control of his mind yet he is experiencing a disease that causes him over sensitivity of the senses. As we go through the story, we can find his fascination in proving his sanity. The narrator lives with an old man, who has a clouded, pale blue, vulture-like eye that makes him so helpless that he kills the old man. He admits that he had no interest or passion in killing the old man, whom he loved. Throughout the story, the narrator directs us towards how he ends up committing a horrifying murder and dissecting the corpse into pieces. The narrator who claims to

THE TELL TALE HEART ESSAY The Tell Tale Heart utilizes a variety of elements of the gothic genre to create a suspenseful mood. Written in 1843, it is a short story by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, where an unnamed narrator endeavours to convince the reader of his sanity while describing the murder he committed and finally ends up admitting it in front of the police. This essay will discuss how the story is filled with suspense by using the following gothic elements-showing no difference between insanity and sanity (the presence of madness) and hearing of psychological sounds which lead to guilt. Throughout the story, these gothic elements are used in synchronization with some techniques within the quotes which helps build suspense in

“True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” (Poe). In “Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe illustrates that the narrator has an acute need of the old man’s vulture eye and eventually murders the man on the eighth night. The author highlights the events of the murder and soon, the narrator confesses to the police of his guilt. As Edgar Allan Poe fabricates this short story, he enthralls the readers by giving the events specific detail. If Edgar Allan Poe were to ever continue the story where the narrator would be put on trial, he would be guilty of premeditated murder. The reason for this is because the narrator cunningly planned the murder, had a motive of killing the old man, and

Have you ever did something horrible? In the Tell-Tale Heart a crazy killer murders an inocent man over his eye. Then he tries to cover up his crime but guilt cathces up with hime and causes hime to confess to the police. In the Tell-Tale heart Edgar Allan Poe uses diction, imgery, and diction to portray the chacater as a demented perpetrator.

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.

Chills run up and down your spine and you begin to feel goosebumps on your arms. Quickly, the cold envelopes you and you feel frozen. What is this? It is the effects of horror fiction. You might be wondering, what in fact is the horror genre? The horror genre is not only the stories told at midnight about ghosts and ghouls. It is simply a story with suspense and tensions. Other details could be added such as good versus evil and supernatural versus natural. The setting might be very spooky and the descriptions probably alarm the reader's senses. “The Tell-Tale Heart” fits the horror genre because of the plot and descriptive writing.