preview

Symbolism In Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell Tale Heart

Decent Essays

The author Edgar Allen Poe creates a story called The Tell Tale Heart about a man who creeps into this old man’s room for 8 days and is convinced that the man vexed him with his eye. The old man’s eye which he refers to as the vulture eye is a symbol. Poe uses symbolism and setting in the story to show how the narrator is like and about his mental condition. Through the use of symbolism, setting, and characterization. The author of the The Tell Tale Heart hows that the narrator is mad and unreliable. Through the use of symbolism Poe spied on the old man to look at the eye that vexed him, which he called the vulture eye. A symbol for eye is a window to the soul, which shows the narrator is looking into his soul and his bothered by it.
“And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it is impossible to do the work; for it is not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye” (1). He watched the old man and described details though most of them might not have been accurate. Poe is intelligent to refer the eye as symbolism and use symbolism throughout the story. I think that poe is very intelligent enough to use symbolism in the essay
Poe uses characterization to create a reliable character. “Villains! I shrieked dissemble no more I admit the deed tear up the planks here it is the beating of his hideous heart” (5). In this quote he admits he did the deed and is terrified thinking the officers knew that

Get Access