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Tell Tale Heart Guilt

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A message that everyone should accept is that people can commit an ill-behaving act, but guilt will will guide them into the path of righteousness at the end. In the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator, entitled insane by many, carries out a slow yet sophisticated plan for ending the life of an old man for his “vulture eye”. A series of pandemonium and nerve wracking mental illnesses, following him through his every breath, gradually getting faster from his delirious mind. The “vulture eye”, staring at him and making his soul disappear into chaos. That disturbing, nail-biting eye with a film over it, watching him day and night for 7 whole days ; the narrator, waiting for the perfect time to strike and get rid …show more content…

He uses symbolism to portray simple objects into something vital to give them a deep significance throughout the story. For example, the text states, “there came to my ears a low, dull quick sound… the old man’s terror must have been extreme… and now a new anxiety seized me --- the sound would be heard by a neighbor.” The narrator heard the heartbeat of the old man getting “louder and louder”, but he felt that others could hear it, even though they actually couldn’t. The narrator felt that he just had an “over-acuteness of sense” , but the heart beating was his own anxiety and fear seizing him. His nervousness and fear builds up to the suspense of how he will act act at the end of the story and if he will actually confess. Also, the text stated, “[he] gasped for breath --- and yet the officers heard it not. [He] talked more quickly -- more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased.” He was “singularly at ease” until he could hear another noise uproaring into his interfering mind. At this time, he was suspecting that the police knew that he committed the crime of killing the old man and that they were soon to put him under the bars for an eternity. The noise got more booming and blaring. Everything in his mind turned into a world of chaos and guilt. His conscience finally told him to confess: “ “Villains!”, [he] shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! Here here! -- It is the beating of his hideous heart!” The narrator’s conscience and guilt told him to confess to the police for the felony he perpetrated. However, one might think that it was not his conscience at all. It could have possibly been that the narrator wanted to get rid of the noise so badly that he just confessed so he could get rid of it. He might’ve been willing to do almost about anything to get rid of the noise going on in

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In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the author uses diction, syntax, and symbolism to develop the narrator’s psychotic character. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator describes a murder that he committed. The narrator says he wants to kill the old man because of his “evil eye”: “for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye” (1). But, the old man’s “eye” could really represent the mindset or soul of the narrator. And, his reason for killing the old man may not be his eye, but really the narrator could be insane and due to that he has urges to kill the old man.

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He goes on to say “It was a low, dull, quick sound— much a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton,” (pg. 181) describing the beating of a heart when being questioned by the police. He also states “ They heard! — They

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He was starting to become nervous. The man was beginning to hear loud noise. It was the beat of the old man's heart. He couldn't take it. He tore up the floorboards and pleaded guilty.

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I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!” Noise, as used in the text, represents a negative connotation word choice to show how the person could not run away from what he did and how the guilt of his actions built on itself until he eventually revealed his secret and told the police officers that he had killed the old man. Similarity, in “I Can’t Stand Him No Longer” by Raphael Dumas, the author states, “I’m sure you all know of my secret, hidden... Through my

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