Frantic Forensic Oratory: The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe: several critics claim that this man is a wannabe literary author. Because Poe tends to build a fearsome mood throughout his narratives, and strives his best to do so, people are apt to overlook the beauty of Poe’s structure and creativity in his writings. A great hypothesis to why Poe always writes such disturbing tales comes straight from an article written by Carl Goldberg. According to a section of “The Secret that Guilty Confessions Fail to Disclose”, “writing served for Poe as a reflection of his inner being” (Goldberg, 181). Poe seemed to write about many distressed individuals and thoughts; by doing this, he tends to represent his characters as his own self. Because of his writing methods, “Poe was able to provide …show more content…
During the entire story “the mentally disturbed [murderer wants] to convince [his] auditors of the reasonableness of [his] crimes-to make [his] audience understand that these things are comprehensible according to ordinary motives of human behavior and psychology”, as stated in the article, “Frantic Forensic Oratory: Poe 's "the Tell-Tale Heart”” (Zimmerman, 39). By trying to persuade his readers that he is not crazy, the madman actually proves is insanity. Yes, this is irony, however, it also leads into a deeper portion of the madman’s speech. (add to this …show more content…
Poe’s narratives are generally prone to have a great deal of time references in them, and all in the course of interpreting “The Tell-Tale Heart”, readers will notice that time is a major factor in the setting as well as in mental illness. Feeling controlled is a symptom of many psychotic diagnoses; and in Poe’s writing, it is evident that the madman feels controlled by time. Basically, everything the lunatic does revolves around time. For example, before he killed him, the madman lurks in on his victim “every night, about midnight”, and it would take him a whole hour to only get his head in the crack of the door; he did this for exactly “seven long nights” (37). Then, one night he accidentally startled the old man, and the madman stood still for an hour (37). Later, when the police arrived, he “talked more quickly” as he heard the steady heartbeat increase (39). Again, the madman feels controlled by time. This timely paranoia functions through the story by slowing down the anticipation of the murder. Poe’s has his readers exactly where he wants them since the expectancy itself has them on the edge of their seats as they are ready to jump due to the scare of the gruesome