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How Does Edgar Allan Poe Create Suspense In The Tell Tale Heart

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The author Edgar Allan Poe uses suspense in the story “The Tell-Tale Heart” to make things better. Its makes the story interesting. He uses different kinds of techniques to create suspense and here are some of the techniques.

One of the techniques Edgar Allan Poe uses in the story is that every night he would go to his house and open the door and watches him every night. He would watch him for seven days and on the eighth day. He would make his attack on the old man. In the story it's says “And every night,about midnight,i turned the latch of his door and opened it-oh,so gently!” Another technique Edgar Allan Poe use is repeating words,phrases,and characters action. In the story the character repeats words and some phrases. When
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In The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe he builds suspense through character anxiety. First off the reader can imagine the fear in the character when he says “... I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror…” (Poe 91). In this the narrator is talking about the old man when he his hears a noise.

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Suspense is something the author of a story can use to keep the story interesting and exciting. Poe uses suspense to keep the reader interested in the story and to keep them reading on. In the story The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe describes the anxiety and fear of the characters to create

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In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” suspense is created through the reoccurring use of repetition which, conjures up feelings of unease in the readers. The speaker is clearly unstable. The speaker who is “nervous-very,very dreadfully nervous”(1) throughout the story repeatedly asks the reader “How, then, am I mad?”(1), then goes on to justify his actions. The reader understands that the fear in the speaker is building up, but do not know the reason why. With an unstable speaker the readers are not certain if what is being told is true or just in the speaker’s mind.

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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.

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Suspense is the sense of growing tension, fear and excitement felt by the reader. Poe builds suspense by using vivid words, repeating words and phrases, and describing a suspenseful setting. In the story, The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe describes the anxiety and fear of his characters to create suspense. For example, the reader can feel suspense when he writes, “ He had the eye of the vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it”(Poe 89).

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Throughout history, we have came across many authors with different writing styles, word choice,or unique ways of interpretations. Edgar Allen Poe is one author who stands out to me the most. He has a unique and dark way of writing his stories and it appeals to the readers emotion and drama. He has a recurring theme of death and lost love, and in “The Tell-Tale Heart” Poe writes about murder, insanity, obsession and guilt. His use of symbolism and point of view is another reason what makes Poe one of the greatest.

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Have you ever read one of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, such as “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” or “The Fall of the House of Usher”? These horror stories utilize specific literary elements to evoke suspense within the reader’s mind. There are several ways an author can do this- the main methods being foreshadowing, reverse dramatic irony, a sadistic choice, and sudden reversals. In “August Heat,” author W.F. Harvey withholds information from the reader and uses foreshadowing and sudden reversals/reveals to get the reader to feel suspense. One of the first techniques Harvey uses is a sudden reveal.

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The Style of Poe Analysis In “The Tell-tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, the demented, arrogant and dark tones reflect the man’s guilt and insanity that eventually leds him to admit to the crime he committed. Poe’s diction heightens the arrogant tones which is seen as the man plans the murder and carries it out in a careful, organized way. He goes “boldly” into the chamber, “cunningly” sticks his head in the doorway and feels “the extent of his own power”. Poe’s use of diction shows how cocky the man actually is.

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“The Tell Tale Heart” Writing Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Tell Tale Heart” is dark and threatening. First the text says that narrator opens the latch of the door every midnight. Then he used a dark lantern, so that the old man will not be able to notice he is there (78). The mood is suspenseful, because in the story, he is doing things that are suspenseful like the dark lantern, sneaking into the room and staying quiet so the old man doesn’t notice is in there. That is why this story is suspenseful.

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Edgar Allan Poe used the literary device of setting to give a dark, threatening tone in the story by using three main elements. Time of day, mood and atmosphere, and population. All to which are very effective towards the story. Time of day affects most of the story of Tell-Tale Heart, through the type of period of time the short story is based on. If it’s based on in the day people expect things that aren’t dark, but if it’s during the night you will be expecting something dark and ominous.

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“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe is an enthralling and terrifying tale of an insane and paranoid Narrator suffocating his own roommate in his sleep. Throughout the story, fear and dread is a common theme. At every twist and turn Poe creates a sense of uneasiness. Using this, Edgar Allen creates fear and dread through the Characters, Conflict, and Suspense, making the “The Tell-Tale Heart” a scary, and captivating story. Edgar Allen Poe creates fear and dread in “The Tell-Tale Heart” through his characters, more specifically the Narrator.

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There is always something that bothers us in life, whether it’s others or even our own conscious. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator has a difficult time following through with his cruel acts because a part of him knows it’s truly wrong. Throughout the story, his crimes bring more tension between him and the old man. Suspense is created with his every move, leaving readers hanging on the edge of their seats. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe builds suspense by using symbolism, inner thinking, and revealing information to the reader that a character doesn’t know about.

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Theme  Versions of Reality → Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" disrupts our versions of reality, even as we identify with it in ways we might not want to admit. Something sparks our curiosity and forces us to follow the narrator through the chilling maze of his mind. We hear the story of murder through words, and through his version of reality.  Cunning and Cleverness → The main character of "The Tell-Tale Heart" promises us a tale of cunning and cleverness, and delivers.

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To begin, the narrator cannot be trusted through his vague personality. The narrator claims, “And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night” (Poe 626). The narrator mentions this the morning after the seventh night of stalking. In the wee hours of the morning, the narrator ever so cautiously enters the old man’s bedroom.

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678 Words | 3 Pages

To conclude, in “The Tell Tale Heart”, Poe uses the technique of suspense

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