Suspense by Edgar Allen Poe Suspense is a writing style that authors use to make people think about when something will happen. Edgar Allen Poe profoundly used this technique in his story “Tell Tale Heart”. He made the reader constantly question what was going to happen. It makes the reader think and sparks a certain interest. In “The Tale Heart”, Poe makes it so the narrator is psychotic. He is particularly tormented by the color of an old man’s glass eye. He was willing to do close to anything to be rid of it, including murder. There are multiple instances of suspense; however one part with the most is when he is going to actually kill him. The old man was sound asleep, and the narrator was entering his room . As he was going to turn on a lantern in order to see what he was doing, the old man was awoken by a sound it made; “I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out –"Who's there?" (Poe 4). At this moment, it was unknown what was …show more content…
After the narrator killed the old man, two cops showed up to the home because of a noise complaint from a neighbor. He invited the officers in, figuring that they would not be aware of anything that happened previously. However, after spending time with the cops in no other than what was the old man's room, he started having insane anxiety. He started hearing the sound of the man’s heart; “The ringing became more distinct: –it continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness –until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears” (Poe 7). At this point it was unknown whether or not the narrator was going to own up to the officers about what he did or if he would keep quiet and not tell them. It created a sense of suspense because depending on what he chose to do, the punishment was