The Tell-Tale Heart: Deeper Dives. This lesson gave you a rundown of the literary devices used in Edgar Allan Poe's famous short story, The Tell-Tale Heart.With reference to the prompts given. Poe wants to make it clear that the tell-tale heartbeat which makes the narrator finally confess to his crime could not be that of the victim. In addition to ascertaining that the old man is 'stone, stone dead,' the narrator tells how he 'cut off his victim's head and the arms and the legs.'

1. A Tell Tale Heart Poe
2. A Tell Tale Heart Film
3. The Tell Tale Heart Story Pdf
4. The Tell Tale Heart Summary
5. A Tell Tale Heart Summary

Summary

A Tell Tale Heart Poe

An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing thereader and claiming that he is nervous but not mad. He says thathe is going to tell a story in which he will defend his sanity yetconfess to having killed an old man. His motivation was neitherpassion nor desire for money, but rather a fear of the man’s paleblue eye. Again, he insists that he is not crazy because his cooland measured actions, though criminal, are not those of a madman.Every night, he went to the old man’s apartment and secretly observedthe man sleeping. In the morning, he would behave as if everythingwere normal. After a week of this activity, the narrator decides,somewhat randomly, that the time is right actually to kill the oldman.

When the narrator arrives late on the eighth night, though,the old man wakes up and cries out. The narrator remains still,stalking the old man as he sits awake and frightened. The narratorunderstands how frightened the old man is, having also experiencedthe lonely terrors of the night. Soon, the narrator hears a dullpounding that he interprets as the old man’s terrified heartbeat.Worried that a neighbor might hear the loud thumping, he attacksand kills the old man. He then dismembers the body and hides thepieces below the floorboards in the bedroom. He is careful not toleave even a drop of blood on the floor. As he finishes his job,a clock strikes the hour of four. At the same time, the narratorhears a knock at the street door. The police have arrived, havingbeen called by a neighbor who heard the old man shriek. The narratoris careful to be chatty and to appear normal. He leads the officersall over the house without acting suspiciously. At the height ofhis bravado, he even brings them into the old man’s bedroom to sitdown and talk at the scene of the crime. The policemen do not suspecta thing. The narrator is comfortable until he starts to hear a lowthumping sound. He recognizes the low sound as the heart of theold man, pounding away beneath the floorboards. He panics, believingthat the policemen must also hear the sound and know his guilt.Driven mad by the idea that they are mocking his agony with theirpleasant chatter, he confesses to the crime and shrieks at the mento rip up the floorboards.

Analysis

Poe uses his words economically in the “Tell-Tale Heart”—itis one of his shortest stories—to provide a study of paranoia andmental deterioration. Poe strips the story of excess detail as away to heighten the murderer’s obsession with specific and unadornedentities: the old man’s eye, the heartbeat, and his own claim tosanity. Poe’s economic style and pointed language thus contributeto the narrative content, and perhaps this association of form andcontent truly exemplifies paranoia. Even Poe himself, like the beatingheart, is complicit in the plot to catch the narrator in his evilgame.

As a study in paranoia, this story illuminates the psychological contradictionsthat contribute to a murderous profile. For example, the narratoradmits, in the first sentence, to being dreadfully nervous, yethe is unable to comprehend why he should be thought mad. He articulateshis self-defense against madness in terms of heightened sensorycapacity. Unlike the similarly nervous and hypersensitive RoderickUsher in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” who admits that he feelsmentally unwell, the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” views hishypersensitivity as proof of his sanity, not a symptom of madness.This special knowledge enables the narrator to tell this tale ina precise and complete manner, and he uses the stylistic tools ofnarration for the purposes of his own sanity plea. However, whatmakes this narrator mad—and most unlike Poe—is that he fails tocomprehend the coupling of narrative form and content. He mastersprecise form, but he unwittingly lays out a tale of murder thatbetrays the madness he wants to deny.

Another contradiction central to the story involves thetension between the narrator’s capacities for love and hate. Poeexplores here a psychological mystery—that people sometimes harmthose whom they love or need in their lives. Poe examines this paradox halfa century before Sigmund Freud made it a leading concept in his theoriesof the mind. Poe’s narrator loves the old man. He is not greedyfor the old man’s wealth, nor vengeful because of any slight. Thenarrator thus eliminates motives that might normally inspire sucha violent murder. As he proclaims his own sanity, the narrator fixateson the old man’s vulture-eye. He reduces the old man to the paleblue of his eye in obsessive fashion. He wants to separate the manfrom his “Evil Eye” so he can spare the man the burden of guilt thathe attributes to the eye itself. The narrator fails to see thatthe eye is the “I” of the old man, an inherent part of his identitythat cannot be isolated as the narrator perversely imagines.

The murder of the old man illustrates the extent to whichthe narrator separates the old man’s identity from his physicaleye. The narrator sees the eye as completely separate from the man,and as a result, he is capable of murdering him while maintainingthat he loves him. The narrator’s desire to eradicate the man’seye motivates his murder, but the narrator does not acknowledgethat this act will end the man’s life. By dismembering his victim,the narrator further deprives the old man of his humanity. The narratorconfirms his conception of the old man’s eye as separate from theman by ending the man altogether and turning him into so many parts.That strategy turns against him when his mind imagines other partsof the old man’s body working against him.

'The Tell-Tale Heart' is an 1843short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Detectives capture a man who admits to the killing of the old man with a strange eye. The murder is carefully planned, and the killer killed the old man's by pulling his bed on top of the man and hiding the body under the floor. The killer feels guilty about the murder, and the guilt makes him imagine that he can hear the dead man's heart still beating under the floor.

No one knows if the old man and the killer are related. Some people think that the old man is a father figure. Some people think that the man is strange, perhaps that his vulture eye represents some sort of veiled secret.

The story was first published in James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer in January 1843. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' is one of Poe's most famous short stories, and it is widely considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre. The story has been made into or inspired many different works in film, television, and other media.

Story[change | change source]

'The Tell-Tale Heart' is a story told in the first-person; meaning that the storyteller talks about their own feelings and actions. The story does not say if the narrator is male or female.

The narrator is living with an old man with a clouded, vulture-like eye. The narrator has feelings of paranoia, and becomes afraid of the old man's strange eye. The narrator becomes so bothered by the eye that he plots to murder the old man. For more than a week, the narrator sneaks into the old man's room at night, watching and waiting for the right time to strike. However, the old man's eyes are shut, hiding the clouded eye, and the narrator loses the urge to kill.

One night, though, the old man awakens as the narrator watches, revealing the eye. The narrator strikes, smothering the old man with his own mattress. The narrator chops up the body, and hides the pieces under the floorboards. The narrator then cleans the place up to hide all signs of the crime. When the narrator reports that the police (whether a delusion or real is unclear) respond to a call placed by a neighbor who heard a distressful scream, the narrator invites them to look around, confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder. They sit around the old man's room, right on top of the very hiding place of the dead body, yet suspect nothing.

The narrator, however, begins to hear a faint noise. As the noise grows louder, the narrator hallucinates that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming from under the floorboards. This paranoia increases as the officers seem to pay no attention to the sound, which is loud enough for the narrator to admit having heard. Shocked by the constant beating of the heart and a feeling that the officers must be aware of the heartbeats, the narrator loses control and confesses to killing the old man and tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal the body.

Throughout the story the narrator insists on being sane, yet at the same time, giving the impression of serious hallucinations or paranoia, possibly caused by guilt from having murdered an elderly man.

Analysis[change | change source]

'The Tell-Tale Heart' starts in medias res, in the middle of an event. The opening is an in-progress conversation between the narrator and another person who is not identified in any way. It is speculated that the narrator is confessing to a prison warden, judge, newspaper reporter, doctor or psychiatrist.^[1] Whoever it is, it sparks the narrator's need to explain himself in great detail.^[2] The first word of the story, 'True!,' is an admission of his guilt.^[1]

One of the driving forces in this opening and throughout the story is not the narrator's insistence upon his innocence but on his sanity. His drive to convince, however, is self-destructive because he fully admits he is guilty of murder.^[3] His denial of insanity is based on his systemic actions and precision - a rational explanation for irrational behavior (murder).^[2] This rationality, however, is undermined by his lack of motivation ('Object there was none. Passion there was none.'). Despite this, however, he says the idea of murder, 'haunted me day and night.'^[3] The story's final scene, however, is a result of the narrator's feelings of guilt. Like many characters in the Gothic tradition, his nerves dictate his true nature. Despite his best efforts at defending himself, the narrator's 'over acuteness of the senses,' which help him hear the heart beating in the floorboards, is what convinces the reader that he is truly mad.^[4] Readers during Poe's time would have been especially interested amidst the controversy over the insanity defense in the 1840s.^[5]

It is unclear, however, if the narrator actually has very acute senses or if he is merely imagining things. If his condition is believed to be true, what he hears at the end of the story may not be the old man's heart but death watch beetles. The narrator first admits hearing death watches in the wall after startling the old man from his sleep. According to superstition, death watches are a sign of impending death. One variety of death watch beetles raps its head against surfaces, presumably as part of a mating ritual, while others emit a ticking sound.^[6]

The relationship between the old man and the narrator is ambiguous, as is their names, their occupations, or where they live. In fact, that ambiguity adds to the tale as an ironic counter to the strict attention to detail in the plot.^[7] The narrator may be a servant of the old man's or, as is more often assumed, his son. In that case, the 'vulture' eye of the old man is symbolizing parental surveillance and possibly the paternal principles of right and wrong. The murder of the eye, then, is a removal of conscience.^[8] The eye may also represent secrecy, again playing on the ambiguous lack of detail about the man or the narrator. Only when the eye is finally found open on the final night, penetrating the veil of secrecy, that the murder is carried out.^[9]

A Tell Tale Heart Film

Former poet laureateRichard Wilbur has suggested that the tale is an allegorical representation of Poe's poem 'To Science.' The poem shows the struggle between imagination and science. In 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' the old man represents the scientific rational mind while the narrator is the imaginative.^[10]

Publication history[change | change source]

'The Tell-Tale Heart' was first published in the Boston-based magazine The Pioneer in January 1843, edited by James Russell Lowell. Poe was likely paid only $10.^[11] It was slightly revised when republished in the August 23, 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal. It was reprinted multiple times during Poe's lifetime.^[12]

Adaptations[change | change source]

The Tell Tale Heart Story Pdf

• As of 2007-09-01 the Internet Movie Database lists 21 adaptations.^[13]
• An animated film version by UPA, read by James Mason, The Tell-Tale Heart (1953),^[14] is included among the films preserved in the United States National Film Registry.
• The Tell-Tale Heart, 1960 version.^[15]
• A reading of the story was performed by Winifred Phillips, with music composed by her, as part of the NPR 'Tales by American Masters' series in 1998 and released on DH Audio.
• The Canadian radio program Nightfall presented an adaptation on August 1st, 1980.

Works inspired[change | change source]

Music

• 'The Tell-Tale Heart' is one of several songs inspired by Poe stories on the album Tales of Mystery and Imagination (original version 1976, CD remix 1987) by The Alan Parsons Project. It is sung by Arthur Brown.
• In 2003, Lou Reed released his concept albumThe Raven comprised of several works inspired by Poe, including the track 'The Tell-Tale Heart.'
• In Insane Clown Posse's 1995 album The Riddlebox, the track 'Ol' Evil Eye' was inspired by this story.
• The song 'Ride the Wings of Pestilence' by California-based post-hardcore band From First to Last shows similarities to 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. However, this has never been confirmed.

Television

• An episode of The Simpsons ('Lisa's Rival,' September 11, 1994) featured a 'Tell-Tale Heart'-inspired act of revenge between Lisa and a new student. In the episode, Lisa hides the competing student's diorama of the story and replaces it with an actual animal heart. As her guilt rises, she thinks she hears the diorama's heart beating beneath the floor boards.
• A season 1 episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, 'Squeaky Boots', has Mr. Krabs burying a pair of squeaky boots underneath the floorboards, only to begin hearing the noise more and more before snapping and digging them up, saying, 'It is the squeaking of the hideous boots!'

References[change | change source]

1. ↑ ^1.01.1Benfey, Christopher. 'Poe and the Unreadable: 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart',' collected in New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN978-0-521-42243-7 p. 30
2. ↑ ^2.02.1Cleman, John. 'Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense', collected in Bloom's BioCritiques: Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. p. 70 ISBN0-7910-6173-6
3. ↑ ^3.03.1Robinson, E. Arthur. 'Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' from Twentieth Century Interpretations of Poe's Tales, edited by William L. Howarth. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1971. p. 94
4. ↑Fisher, Benjamin Franklin. 'Poe and the Gothic Tradition,' from The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 87 ISBN0-521-79727-6
5. ↑Cleman, John. 'Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense', collected in Bloom's BioCritiques: Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. p. 66 ISBN0-7910-6173-6
6. ↑Reilly, John E. 'The Lesser Death-Watch and 'The Tell-Tale Heart',' collected in The American Transcendental Quarterly. Second quarter, 1969. Available onlineArchived 2009-12-18 at the Wayback Machine
7. ↑Benfey, Christopher. 'Poe and the Unreadable: 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart',' collected in New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN978-0-521-42243-7 p. 32
8. ↑Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. p. 223 ISBN0-8071-2321-8
9. ↑Benfey, Christopher. 'Poe and the Unreadable: 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart',' collected in New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN978-0-521-42243-7 p. 33
10. ↑Benfey, Christopher. 'Poe and the Unreadable: 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart',' collected in New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN978-0-521-42243-7 p. 31-2
11. ↑Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 201 ISBN0-06-092331-8
12. ↑Index to Poe's tales at Baltimore Poe Society Online
13. ↑'IMDb Title Search: The Tell-Tale Heart'. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-09-01.
14. ↑The Tell-Tale Heart (1953/I) on IMDb
15. ↑The Tell-Tale Heart (1960) on IMDb

Other website[change | change source]

The Tell Tale Heart Summary

A Tell Tale Heart Summary