Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe Sanity may not be as common as humans wish to believe it is. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story called “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The narrator explains his experience with a lovely old man and the man’s vulture eye. The narrator makes claims to be completely sane, though his actions contradict his words. Poe dislikes the man’s eye and wishes he no longer had to look into it. One night, the old man hears the narrator at his door, causing the man in the door to lash out on the old man and hide his lifeless, mutilated body under the floorboards. When the police arrive to question the Poe, he confesses to the officers out of pure guilt. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” suspense is created through a sinister narrator, somber setting, and a disheartening plot.

He expresses gruesome details of the murder he performed. “You should have seen how careful I was to put the body where no one could find it. First I cut off the head, then the arms and the legs.” [Poe p66]. Explaining how he took care of the man’s body is sinister in nature and bound to be unsettling to many readers. The details cause intriguing, surprising, and terrified reactions to arise from the readers. The sinister writing by Poe proves that his mental state is unstable. A story with such a dark ending will likely have a dreary setting. The setting for “The Tell-Tale Heart” is dark, quiet, and saddening. “You may think I became afraid. But no. The darkness in his room was thick and black. I knew he could not see the opening of the door.” [Poe p65]. The narrator stands at the door and stares at the old man, knowing he is aware of someone in his room. The story has a sad tone without much emotion other than fear. The unsettling feeling in the narrator’s story is brought to attention by the somber