The Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe - 879 Words

In between guilt, paranoia and obsession The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe uses several literary elements to support the themes of the story. The story is based on a gruesome murder of an old man. The author uses madness, obsession and guilt as themes to prove how the narrator is truly twisted and insane. Madness is the first theme of the story; in the beginning the narrator tries to convince the audience he is not mad (insane). â€Å"TRUE!... nervous very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?† (The Tell-Tale Heart 1-3). The narrator throughout the story persuades the audience that he was not insane for killing the old man. However, the more the man speaks the more we know he is mentally unstable. The narrator own words convict him. Even though he once again attempts to assure us he is fine by telling us the story of the murder calmly. â€Å"Observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the whole story† (The Tell-Tale Heart 1-3). Once starting the story, he states he loved the old man, he never did him wrong and most indeed did not want his gold. The main motivation for killing the old man was his eye and he reassures us it was definitely his eye â€Å"I think it was his eye! YES, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture, a pale blue ey e with film over it.† (The Tell-Tale Heart 1-3). The vulture like eye which made his blood run cold which triggered the man to go mad. By stalking the old man for a whole week every midnight discreetly and cautiously.Show MoreRelatedThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1161 Words   |  5 PagesOut of a vast quantity of these English historians, one stood out to me, his name is Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s writing had its own unique gothic and horror style. The story, The Tell-Tale Heart is one of his very popular pieces of literature, it not only tells a story, but uses Poe’s unique style of writing to silently incorporate different genres, themes, and symbolism to create a sub-story within the text itself. Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. At the young age of just 2 yearsRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1569 Words   |  7 PagesIn the short story â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart,† author Edgar Allan Poe employs several literary devices such as symbolism, allegory, and imagery. These devices enable us to see and better comprehend the story’s events through the eyes of the narrator. The narrator explains that he is extremely nervous but clarifies that he is not insane; he even goes so far as to share an event from his past to prove that he is not crazy. He believes that he loves the old man and has nothing against him except his horribleRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe Essay1477 Words   |  6 Pagesyourself and others that you weren’t in the wrong for doing something bad? Well, the narrator in the story The Tell-Tale Heart does. Edgar Allan Poe is known to write stories that are of Dark Romanticism. Dark romanticism is a literary genre that showcases gothic stories that portray torture, insanity, murder, and revenge. The story â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† is no different. Edgar Allan Poe does a great job with making the readers wonder throughout this short story. This allegory makes reader’s questionsRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe986 Words   |  4 Pagesbade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream.† The Tell Tale Heart is one of Edger Allan Poe’s most famous and creepiest stories. The premise of this gothic short story is that a man’s own insanity gives him away as a murderer. By usi ng the narrators own thoughts as the story Poe displays the mental instability and the unique way of creating a gothic fiction. While other stories written by Poe reflect this same gothic structure and questionable sanity, this story has aRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1502 Words   |  7 PagesThe author Edgar Allan Poe created a beautiful writing piece called â€Å"Tell Tale Heart†, which included literal elements such as mood, tone, and point of view. The story included a tremulous mood for the reader to be able to feel the excitement of the story. According to the text â€Å"Tell Tale Heart†, it states â€Å"And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.† This illustrates that the details of the storyRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1030 Words   |  5 PagesA Guilty- Mad Heart â€Å"Burduck then goes on to ponder how Poe used cultural anxieties and psychological panic to advantage.† (Grim Phantasms, G.A. Cevasco). In The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, a nameless man narrates the story of how he murdered an elderly man because of his eyes. In his short story The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe shows the themes of guilt and the descent into madness through the narrator, in this gothic horror story. Edgar Allan Poe wrote many gothic tales throughout his lifeRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1133 Words   |  5 Pages Written in 1843, The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe incorporates nearly all of the gothic elements. While this piece of art may not contain all of the gothic elements, it is the epitome of a gothic short story. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the setting seems to be inside an old house, which strengthens the atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The madness and overall insanity of the narrator illustrates the sense of high, overwrought emotion. The presence of creaking hinges and the darkness representRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1644 Words   |  7 Pages Edgar Allan Poe was a prominent American writer whose writing reflected his tragic life. He began to sell short stories for profit after being forced to leave United States Military Academy for lack of financial support. Over the next decade, Poe published some of his best-known works, including The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), The Raven (1845), and The Cask of Amontillado (1846). It is in these stories that Po e established his unique dark writing style that often have the recurring themeRead MoreA Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1156 Words   |  5 Pagescontain some level of madness. For example in the short stories â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† by Edgar Allan Poe, both of the main character in these stories believe that they are perfectly wise, but their out of control behaviors proves that they’re mentally ill or to be more specific insane. In the short story â€Å"A tell-tale heart† the unknown narrator is telling us a story about his neighbor who is an old man but his of a vulture: blue pale eye is whatRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe2007 Words   |  9 PagesThe Tell Tale Heart Research Paper In â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe delights readers to a very thought out and psychological based short story of a very in depth murder from the murderer’s perspective. In â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart: Overview† it is proven that: â€Å"One of the most powerful contributions that Edgar Allan Poe made to the short story genre was his insistence that every element of the work contribute to the story’s overall effect. Poe frequently gave this aesthetic demand realistic