Essay on Symbolism in The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

In addition to the fact that the narrator understood that murdering someone is wrong, the narrator has a motive for killing the old man. Right off the bat, the narrator tells the reader why he wanted to kill the old man. He says, “I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that 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 for ever.” This indicates that he had a clear rationale for killing the old man and is guilty of first degree, or premeditated murder. Some may argue that the narrator is mentally insane and killed the man because over an irrational fear caused by his mental illness. However, an insane person would not wait to terminate a powerful feeling of paranoia and to assassinate the person causing such fear.

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.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dreamed before” (Edgar Allan Poe). Darkness and sadness are strong characteristics of Edgar Allan Poe’s writing. The tragedies during his life, such as the death of his biological and adoptive moms, followed by the death of his young wife Virginia were important factors which formed his gothic style. Poe is known for his drinking problems and use of drugs. Those habits had a big influence in his life and in his works.

about conveying these feelings to his readers and why it is so effective. Poe uses an

The motivation for murder according to the narrator was “not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye” (Poe 922). However, it is possible that the eye symbolizes a necrosis of the narrator’s spirit. The narrator uses terms such as “infuriate”, “hideous”, “vulture” and “dammed” when describing the eye (Poe 923). These words are often used to describe the demonization of individuals who commit irrational crimes against humanity, such as the crime our narrator is confessing to, the murder and dismemberment of an innocent old man in his sleep. In “The Physiognomical Meaning of Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’”, Edward W. Pritcher states “it

Poe was the first author to cater to the darker side of the mindscape. His works such as The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum have been honored long after his mysterious death in Victorian England, although his writing weren’t widely recognized during his life. His works often deal with themes such as death and misery, and run on emotions regarding those. The work The Tell Tale Heart, is one of those, with the narrator’s insanity in overdrive as he murders an old man simply

Next, he wrote about madness/ insanity. What he wrote was about insanity and how it could drive you to do crazy things. This relates to Poe’s life such as the

In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the poet, Edgar Allan Poe, writes of several different themes. Some of them include time and human nature. However, the most prevalent themes remain as the themes of guilt and insanity. The poem revolves around a man that lives with an old man that has an eye that the narrator fears. He calls it the vulture eye. He believes that it is evil, so he plans to murder the old man. Edgar Allan Poe expresses the themes of insanity and guilt by using the symbols of the beating heart, the vulture eye, and the lantern throughout the poem.

“The relationship of Poe’s work to the Gothic tradition... For Poe, both the stylistics and the thematics of Gothic fiction became a major aesthetic imperative, partly because he found in the Gothic a means of giving objective expression to the subjective demons at large in his short, sad life…” (Thomson, Voller, and Frank, 331) In essence Poe’s stories are almost as if they were journal entries of his own, since his characters and himself are often going through similar problems at similar times. He found comfort in this genre simply due to the fact that this is what he could relate to most.

“He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult...I think it was his eye!...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 for ever.” (The Tell-Tale Heart 1) This irrational reason to kill proves how insane the narrator is, because the Montresor had been insulted and sought vengeance, while the narrator had no incentive from the old man other than his eye, “ resembled that of a vulture-- a pale blue eye with a film over it.” ( Poe 1) Using a false eye as a reason to murder someone is unorthodox and

With the story being so short, it is clear that there is thematic symbolism of the elderly man’s eye. The narrator first introduces the eye when discussing why he wanted to kill the old man. In admitting that the man never did him wrong and that he loved him but, he concludes that “it was his eye!” that haunted him. He goes on to describe that “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” (Poe 691). It is made clear very soon that the eye is not only of importance but also the cause of conflict. The narrator separates the eye, which he calls the “Evil Eye”, from the man. While it is not the old man that is the problem, it is the eye; he says “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 691). The eye is what triggers his ultimate rampage of murder and dismembering. E. Arthur Robison from the University of California explains that “his [the narrator’s] sensitivity to sight is equally disturbing, for it is the old man’s eye which first vexed him and which he seeks to destroy.” There is importance in the idea of the eye triggering an immediate and quick action, the murder, while the rest of the story is prolonged. He

Authorial intrusion, which is uncommon in most works of contemporary fiction, is arguably the most important literary device Poe uses to construct the narrator’s manic voice. Though the entire story is written as a confessional, the unnamed chronicler frequently interrupts his recount to attempt to convince the reader that he actually isn’t insane. After explaining his egregious crime along with the motivation; the narrator proceeds to state  “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me” (92). These erratic sentences interrupt the flow of the writing but are extremely important in developing the narrator's voice as it further  Following the quote he explains the methodical lengths he went through; lengths that only an absolute psychopath would find rational, and attempts to justify them as his own cunning intellect rather than an insatiable desire to kill. He reiterates a similar variation of this sentence multiple times throughout his recounting of the events, “If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer” (95) and “have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?” (94), which again helps to reinforce this idea that the narrator is truly unaware of his own madness.

Finally, that aggravation leads him to commit such a criminal activity of murdering the old man. The story, however, reflects the narrator loving that old man as it clearly states: I loved the old man and in addition to that, the narrator speaks that: He had never wronged me” (Poe 11). “In the story, the narrator was ensuring over that he is normal like other individuals, however, he points out his hearing to be more acute as he claimed to hear different voices from heaven and hell which could be hard to believe for a normal individual as mostly they are hypothetical or delusional” (Summary).

“…I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. …I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that 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 this rid myself of the eye forever…”

Poe’s writing style was much like that of Hawthorne’s, but drew from the darker side of romance creations. This gothic mood believed in the dark truths of the human heart, which are the ends and motivations for many of his stories. Human corruption and violence ends in murder in “The Black Cat”. Gothic writings move more into the supernatural side, which lets observer of the see a living person in the picture at his first, sleepy glance.