The Tell-Tale Heart and the Similarities With Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe was a very troubled man throughout his life, but all these events affected his writing deeply and uniquely. Poe lost the people near and dear to his heart which of course made him very depressed. Poe was battling alcoholism during the middle years of his life, a hard battle for him to fight in his situation of poverty.

Chills run down your spine as a breath of wind rushes past your frame. Incoherent whispering fills your ear due to the flowing wind… Edgar Allen Poe, one of America’s most prolific writers, wrote numerous horror stories that defined the genre for modern writing. Effort went into creating the style that he was known for, but was it constant from one story to the next? Despite differences in plot and length there are similarities of tone, setting, structure, narration, and character between two of his most famous stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” that allude to Poe’s true writing style.

“Mr. Poe could not possibly send forth a book without some marks of his genius, and mixed up with the dross we find much sterling ore.” — (From a review of Poe’s Tales, September 6, 1845.) In 1845, Poe, 27, and Virginia, 13, married, and were happy for a time. In 1842, Virginia ruptured a blood vessel; the first sign of the ill health that plagued her short life. Poe turned to alcohol to cope with her illness and the stress of his dying wife. Two years later, Virginia died of tuberculosis, and Poe’s own death would follow shortly two years after that.

The year 1846 marked the beginning of Poe’s decline. He was involved in personal scandals with two female literary “groupies”. When Virginia Poe died in 1947, Poe collapsed. He was found unconscious on a Baltimore street in 1949. A brief obituary reported that Poe had died of “congestion of the brain” (Regan 3). Poe’s turbulent childhood, troubled mid-life, unusual relationships, and hardships were reflected in his various works.

In the short story Tell- Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe has three primary elements that I will be talking about. Which are :elapsed time,locale, and population.

Primarily, Edgar Allan Poe was the best Gothic writer, because of all his life experiences with death. Poe’s entire life was full of sorrow. Jeffrey Meyers, author of Edgar Allan Poe his life and legacy, states, “traumatized by the deaths of the women who had loved him…Poe was well prepared for a perfectly wretched life”

To start, Edgar Allan Poe suffered through tragedy, poverty, and failure most of his life, all trials that would mold him into a master of macabre literature. In January of 1809, Edgar Allan Poe, writer and poet, “…was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe’s father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia.”(“Edgar Allan Poe”). Poe never truly knew his parents before they tragically passed on. Yet, being almost three years of age, he did have some sense of loss, an emotion often present in his short stories and poems. About thirty years later, Poe found himself burdened by poverty, and in 1842, his wife, the person who brought him peace at this time, was

Poe’s suffering began at a young age when his father left Poe’s mother, siblings, and Poe himself to fend on their own. Another devastating blow was dealt when Poe’s mother died, subsequently

In the short story “A Tell-Tale Heart,” by Egnor Allan Poe, the killer is criminally insane. To begin with, the killer claims he is not crazy. He states, himself, on page 145, “but why will you say that I am mad?” He went on to say, “How, then, am I mad? Hearkin! And observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” Even though he says this, any mentally ill person would deny being insane, or if it is bad enough, they might not even realize it. To continue with my argument, the killer gets very angry about the man’s eye. On page 145 he stated, “ I think it was his eye! Yes it was this.” In addition to this, he also said, “whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.” Only a crazy person would get so worked up about an eye and

Poe had written different works of literature before the death of his wife, but his most famous works were written after her death. The rejection, lack of love, and loss of his many loved ones were the cause of Poe's illnesses. In looking back on Poe's life and his works, it is apparent that Poe suffered from many mental illnesses. Though the exact illnesses he suffered from can not be exact, it is true that he suffered from depression, anxiety, and

Edgar Allen Poe used his life experiences as a building block to construct his tales and express his feelings the best way he knew how. If a person pays attention to the events and situations he went through and compare them to his writings, they will see that there are a lot of similarities. In the Tell-Tale Heart the narrator said “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult” (Poe 387). Could we assume that he was talking about his Uncle whom took him in as a child? The same Uncle who cared for him deeply, but not enough to adopt him and make him an official member of the family. He loved his Uncle but could it be that he didn’t like what he saw when he really looked him in the eyes. The pity that he probably

Poe, for inference, suffered from alcoholism and in some opinions, insanity. Several characters in Poe's writings exhibit signs of mental illness or disease. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator illustrates how “The disease had sharpened” his senses. (Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”). Although it is not clear on what the disease is, it is presented that the narrator suffers some form of mental illness that could have been taken from Poe’s own life.

Have you ever done something and wasn’t sure why you did it? Or have you ever tried to convince yourself and others that you weren’t in the wrong for doing something bad? Well, the narrator in the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" does. Edgar Allan Poe is known to write stories that are of Dark Romanticism. Dark romanticism is a literary genre that showcases gothic stories that portray torture, insanity, murder, and revenge. The story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is no different. Edgar Allan Poe does a great job with making the readers wonder throughout this short story. This allegory makes reader’s questions the narrator motives. Wondering, why he wants to kill the old man? What’s taking him so long to kill the old man? What happens if the old man never opens his ‘Evil Eye?’ Will he get away with murder? And Lastly, Is the narrator really insane? Though this is a short story, Poe shows why “The Tell-Tale Heart” meets the criteria for a good story. The theme, plot, story structure, characters, setting and style are all self-evident.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1839, can be compared to Poe’s later work “The Tell-Tale Heart”, published in 1843. In both gothic stories, there are physical deformities, mental illness, and despicable crimes. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Roderick Usher, the main character, and one of the last of the Usher blood line, had a twin sister, Madeline, who suffered from a mysterious illness. After believing she had died, Roderick learned that was not the case --Madeline was still alive-- yet he buried her anyway. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, an unnamed narrator lived with an old man, whom he was plotting to murder because he wanted to help rid the world of the old man’s evil eye. In both Poe’s stories death is a very prominent theme (Davis).

Edgar Allan Poe’s life works are a reflection of who he is may it be crazy, depressing, or frightening. His background is what makes him a unique writer, all the horror he writes about is real and he has faced. He takes the main idea from his own life and adds details to describe how he feels making his story realistically horrific because it is real. Many authors just take ideas out of their brain which is great but writing book and poems from your own life, things that really happen is taking it to the next level making it exciting and