The Tell Tale Heart Suspense Analysis

All stories would be unable to keep people’s attention without suspense, and they would be very boring and bland. Most well-written stories would have an element of suspense to keep the story interesting, and suspense would be critical in stories with dark themes to help create the mood. Therefore, authors would need to know how to use many different techniques that create suspense. As a well-known author and poet who wrote dark stories that kept people on their edge, Edgar Allan Poe utilized the element of suspense masterfully in each of his stories and poems. Unsurprisingly, in Poe 's poem, "The Raven" and short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart", suspense was created skillfully through the point-of-view of the narrator, irony, and narrative structure.

Poe used a lot of dramatic irony that gave the readers information that the narrators didn’t know which creates suspense because the readers will anticipate what the narrators would do. In particular, dramatic irony was used in “The Raven” when the narrator heard tapping at his door heard loud tapping that came from his window after the tapping at his door stopped. He stated, “Let me heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—‘Tis the wind and nothing more!”, and the readers were anticipating what the narrator was going to do and how he would react when he opened the window while expecting nothing to be there since the readers knew it was not the wind that the narrator thought it was. Likewise, irony was also used in “The Tell-Tale Heart” when the narrator heard his father’s heart beating. The narrator stated, “I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me – the sound would be heard by a neighbor”, so the readers would anticipate what the narrator would choose to do because the readers know that the neighbors won’t hear the heartbeats, but the narrator didn’t, so he could have decided to change his plan as his anxiety grew. Another use of irony in “The Tell-Tale Heart” was when the narrator heard a noise that was continuously getting louder, and he thought that the police officers heard the noise too, so he stated, “They heard! – they suspected! – they

Poe utilized the delays of the reveals of certain events that the readers had anticipated which created suspense from their anticipation. In “The Raven”, the delay was first used when the narrator heard a tapping at his door, and the readers were anticipating for the reveal of who was tapping, but the narrator hindered the reveal by distracting himself with his “sorrow for the lost Lenore” and comforting himself that the tapping was from a “late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door” and the delay made the readers anticipated the reveal more than before. Delays were also used in “The Tell-Tale Heart” as the narrator planned to kill his father, but the narrator had always been delaying the murder “for seven long nights, every night at midnight” because he couldn’t see his father’s eye, and every night that he visited his father, he moved his head “slowly, very, very, slowly” which took an hour. Every time, the narrator delayed his murder, the readers anticipate more for the murder which created more suspense in the story. The murder was further delayed even after he could see his father’s eye and was sure he was going to murder his father, he stated, “But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the