Literary Devices In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, novelist and literary critic. Poe is best known for his horror stories, mystery and rare adventures such as his famous tale The tell-tale Heart. He has also contributed to the emerging science fiction genre. He was born January 19, 1809 and died October 7, 1849.

Tell-Tale Heart is a story told from a third person perspective. It is about a person who is mentally ill who imagines that an old man 's eye got his blood to freeze. Therefore, he decided to kill the old man and hide his body. When the police came to investigate what has happened, he panics and admits to them that he killed the old man. But in the story the author chooses not to mention what the main character is called.

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There was many literary device that was used in the tale but i 'm going to mention the most obvious ones. Such as Repetition that was used quite often, for example at the end of the tale the narrator kept saying that he killed the old man. This was used because the author wanted to add some more tension to the tale and so the reader could really experience the horror. Another literary device that was used in general was the rhetorical question which was used to get a better understanding of the narrator and how his mind works. The tales even starts with the narrator asking himself why people think that he is crazy and mad. Exaggeration was another literary device that was used in a very good way. Since the narrator did say that his senses were getting stronger and to give the reader an idea just how strong his sense have become, the narrator proceeds on saying that he could hear the sounds of heaven and

I do think that the eye symbolize the issue that the has narrator has with his inner vision. Which he refuses to accept that he is sick and mentally unstable. Because the narrator did describe the eye as “evil” and the eye of “vulture”, and these words does summarize the narrator 's identity pretty much. Since he did kill the old man without any real reason and dismembers his body and even courageously let the police sit and have a conversation over the old man’s corpse. Furthermore he did stalk the old man before he killed him and showed no sympathy nor any human emotion. Which just shows the problem he 's having with his identity and inner vision is deep. That does also explain why everytime he looks at the old man he became irritated and felt like it was necessary to get rid of the eye. While the heart does resemble the human perspective of the narrator considering that he even bragged about executing the perfect murder. But his conscience started to come back and felt awful about the crime that he had committed, so he confesses to the