ipl-logo

The Tell Tale Heart Literary Analysis

1117 Words5 Pages

In Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart, Poe writes about how his characters are driven to commit murder and how their guilt eats them alive. The dark plots used is his writings exemplify the threshold of the unknown through the way that individuals are viewed as evil. All of his writings have some sort of violence that is driven by supernatural occurrences. The man in The Tell-Tale Heart has an eye that is scary and seen as potential evil that drives the narrator crazy and eventually causes murder. Poe uses romantic characteristics in his texts by having dark plots that include murder, funerals, and mental and physical torture that regards humanity by showing how people react to even the smallest situations. The threshold of the unknown is expressed …show more content…

These murders are only thought of and happen because of supernatural occurrences. Poe’s poems, since they are romantic, are always dark and revolve around death and torture. Poe’s writings are gothic and the plots of gothic literature are always about murder, funerals, and torture. “Above all was the sense of hearing acute. (The narrator) heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. (The narrator) heard many things in hell,” the guilt of the murder tortured the narrator and made him believe that he was hearing things that were not real. The plots that the narrator makes to murder the man and get away with it are very in depth. Guilt also causes the narrator to think of more wicked schemes than before. “If still you think (the narrator) mad, you will think so no longer when (the narrator) describe the wise precautions (the narrator) took for the concealment of the body,” reveals the attention to detail the narrator had when carrying out the murder. As time goes on, the guilt makes the character conscious of every move they make. What he did is always on his mind and he is constantly wondering about what might happen next. “(The narrator) kept quite still and said nothing...hearkening to the death watches in the wall,” the narrator shows the consciousness of his actions and how guilt forces him into thinking that the hidden body is watching their every step. The murder that was committed shows that supernatural occurrences do cause characters to go insane and take actions that usually would not have been thought

Show More
Related

Interprettive Essay: The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

728 Words | 3 Pages

“ The Tell-Tale Heart” Interpretive Essay Is the complex character created by Edgar Allan Poe a calculated killer or a delusional madman. In the short story “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character has a mental condition which causes him to kill a neighbor. He believes that his neighbor has a “vulture eye” which is the reason why he killed him. Night after night, he watches the man and plans how to kill him. Then one night, he puts his plan into action.

Read More

Humanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

647 Words | 3 Pages

With all we know about Poe and his many works, we 're hit with suspense and anticipation by the first part of the story. Later in the tale, the narrator slows down and reveals his preparations that lead to the murder in such a deliberately enticing and suspenseful way, that even though you knew what was going to happen, it was still intense and suspenseful to read. These moods were further carried on by the way the narrator

Read More

A Literary Analysis Of The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

560 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More

Compare And Contrast Tell Tale Heart And The Raven

930 Words | 4 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe’s frightening gothic style poetry and short novels about fear, love, death and horror are prominent to Gothic Literature and explore madness through a nerve-recking angle. The incredible, malformed author, poet, editor and novelist is recognized for his famous classical pieces such as “The Raven”, “Berenice” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, pieces of work that mystically yet magnificently awakens readers with a gloomy spirit. Awakening the subject of madness through written work was viewed as insane during Poe’s times. Yet Poe published some of the worlds most magnificently frightening pieces of literature throughout history. In the following essay I will examine and cautiously analyze

Read More

Irony In The Tell-Tale Heart And The Lottery

471 Words | 2 Pages

The demonstration of the narrator's imagination unconsciously leads his own thoughts to grow into a chaotic mess that ultimately ends in a death. By murdering, it’s his own way of finding peace. He is portrayed as being a sadist, sick man with an unnatural obsession for

Read More

An Analysis Of Edgar Allen Poe's Vocabulary

1590 Words | 7 Pages

The scary tone has a trend through all of his stories which makes the reader more engaged. In “The Tell Tale Heart” Poe talks about death and how an eye viewed as, “an evil eye” could cause someone to kill. It took some time, but Poe lead the whole story up to the gruesome murder scene. “First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and then the legs.

Read More

Suspense In The Tell Tale Heart

1109 Words | 5 Pages

There are times in life where people do commit a small mistake, or a huge crime, but what really matters is if one will listen to their conscience. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character lives with an old man who has an eye that “resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” The story revolves around the main character’s obsession over the eye, and how he got rid of it-- by murdering the old man. Towards the end of the story, the young man confesses to the police about his insane stunt after they searched his house. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe focused on having the reader know more than the secondary character, using description, and using a first-person narrator, to build suspense.

Read More

Theme Of Obsession In The Tell Tale Heart

983 Words | 4 Pages

It is through the power of obsession, guilt and paranoia in which, Edgar Allan Poe reveals how far people would go to hurt others. Obsession acts as a strong motive for crime. Edgar Allan Poe portrays obsession in “The Tell Tale Heart” through the narrator as he expresses his thoughts leading up to the murder. After the narrator argues his case to why he is not mad, he begins his story with an “idea” which “entered his brain,” which is the start of an obsession that “haunted him day and night” (2.1-2). The narrator speaks as if the eye of the old man is latching itself onto the him.

Read More

Gothic Elements Of Violence Essay

539 Words | 3 Pages

The first Gothic element of violence is “The Tell-Tale Heart”. The narrator has a very strong hatred toward the old man that leads to the old man’s death. According to Poe the narrator is violent, the narrator hears the old man’s heart stop, so he checks if he is really dead. So the narrator gets the old man and cuts him up and hides the parts under the floor (2).

Read More

Literary Elements In Edgar Allan Poe

1208 Words | 5 Pages

In many stories and poems; such as the Tell Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven, Annabel Lee, The House of Usher, and so many more timeless works, Edgar Allan Poe has been captivating his audiences with spine tingling thrillers through the words and style of his own twisted ways. The only way to describe where Poe’s writing belongs in history, would be classified as gothic genre. From the start of the 1800’s to present day and the future of literature, through irony, repetition, imagery, and symbolism Poe has been bewitching readers with his gore and insane writings. Poe’s life inspired so many of his poems, from focusing on taboo topics, such as death, revenge, love and loss. Poe’s life was painful and heartbreaking that

Read More

Figurative Language In The Tell Tale Heart

593 Words | 3 Pages

The Narrator in some moments of the story can be as scared and nervous. Based on the story he says ¨ I am nervous: so i am,¨ and ¨So strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror,¨ this shows the reader his fear to killing the old

Read More

Elements Of Gothic Elements In The Tell-Tale Heart

1056 Words | 5 Pages

Gothic Elements in the “The Tell Tale Heart” The classic short story of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by one of the all time masters of horror, Edgar Allen Poe, has always been used as an excellent example of Gothic fiction. Edgar Allen Poe specialized in the art of gothic writing and wrote many stories that portrayed disturbing events and delved deeply into the minds of its characters. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," Poe revolves the plot around a raving individual who, insisting that he is sane, murders an old man because of his` “vulture eye”. The three main gothic elements that are evident in this story are the unique setting, the theme of death and decay, and the presence of madness.

Read More

Rhetorical Techniques In The Tell Tale Heart

434 Words | 2 Pages

While Edgar Allan Poe as the narrator of the The Tell-Tale Heart has the reader believe that he was indeed sane, his thoughts and actions throughout the story would prove otherwise. As the short story unfolds, we see the narrator as a man divided between his love for the old man and his obsession with the old man’s eye. The eye repeatedly becomes the narrator’s pretext for his actions, and while his delusional state caused him much aggravation, he also revealed signs of a conscience. In the first paragraph of the short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe establishes an important tone that carries throughout his whole story, which is ironic.

Read More

The Unreliable Narrator In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

882 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the story, three major details of the narrator’s psyche are confirmed. First, we learned of the narrator’s deceitfulness. Every morning he lies to the old man with the least bit of guilt. The next continues to prove the madness as the narrator feels utter joy from the terror of another. Lastly, the narrator fabricates that the old man is simply not home to assure the officers.

Read More

Theme Of Death In Edgar Allan Poe

2063 Words | 9 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author; he mainly focused in genres such as short stories and poems. Poe didn’t have much of an academic background in literature but, he excelled in it. Some people believe that his success was mostly due to the fact that his life was very sad, filled by a series on misfortunate events, such as being an orphan, suffering from poverty and being constantly surrounded by death. In his works, Poe portrays narratives that are characterized by their mystery and macabre. The topic of death was ever present in his work, constantly describe with dark moods and somewhat terrifying settings.

Read More

More about The Tell Tale Heart Literary Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document