How Does Poe Create Suspense In A Tell Tale Heart

Imagine having someone breaking into your house to watch you as you sleep every night. This is what the main character does in A Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. In this story, the main character despises the old man’s ‘vulture eye’ and wants to kill him because of the anger it has caused him. However, there is always a consequence for doing something that is wrong. On the eighth night that the main character had been watching the old man, the old man had woken up and shrieked in fear of the intruder. This only made the character more mad, which resulted in the old man being killed that night. He chops up the body and hides it under the floorboards, leaving nobody to suspect him of anything. Then, the police come at the call of the neighbor of the old man’s shriek. He calmy invites them in, and is so confident that he is brave enough to sit them down right

For example, Poe writes “I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously-cautiously (for the hinges creaked)-I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye” (Poe 90). The repetition causes the reader to wonder why the man is acting so strange, why he has to be so quiet and secretive; therefore, it builds suspense. The repetition in this example shows the reader that the character has to be sneaky and cannot get caught trying to kill the old man. He is trying to ensure that he will not get caught, and that he will succeed in killing him without anyone knowing. He’s making clear how careful and cautious he’s being. Poe then further builds suspense when he writes, “It was open-wide, wide open-and I grew furious as I gazed upon it” (Poe 91). He grows mad when he sees that the eye is wide open. The reason why he’s killing the old man is because of how much the eye bothers him. It is suspenseful because the repetition of how the eye appears leaves them anxious to find out what the character will do to the old