Tell Tale Heart, the insane story of a self assured sane man. This short story was published during 1843 by the eccentric author Edgar Allan Poe. In this short story, the frantic narrator diligently tries to convince the reader that he is a sane man, while providing contradicting details for his quest to murder an innocent old man. His reasons behind it? Simply because he is agitated by the old man’s eye and finds it distasteful. In this short story “The Tell Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe depicts the frightening twisted mind of the reader using irony, imagery, and symbolism.
The tale begins with the narrator trying to convince others, that he is not mad, all while stating that he is sane and very calm, but at the same time very nervous and …show more content…
With the narrator’s keen hearing sense, he believed he heard the old man’s heart, when infact it was his own heart thumping because of his guilt to commit the hideous crime and the fear of him getting caught by the policemen. Time is referenced many time in the story, one can interpret that the time perhaps symbolized the incoming death of the old man. The narrator mentions “He was still sitting up in the bed listening; – just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall” (death watches or beetles, their clicking was thought to be an omen of death) (Backpack Literature 43). This further supports the interpretation, that indeed time was foreshadowing the incoming death of the old man.The bedroom and the bed is another great symbol used in the short story, although it symbolizes the opposite of what they actually are. Normally we associate our bedroom with comfort, peace, safety, and most of all our own private place, where we have privacy. Unfortunately for the old man that is not the case, as the narrator violated all of those rules. The narrator entered the room without permission every night with the objective to harm the old man in his own safe domain. The bed, instead of being the resting place of the old man, was used as a weapon to murder him. In addition the whole bed room or resting room was instead turned into the old man’s tomb, as the old man’s dismembered body was buried
The tale begins with the narrator trying to convince others, that he is not mad, all while stating that he is sane and very calm, but at the same time very nervous and …show more content…
With the narrator’s keen hearing sense, he believed he heard the old man’s heart, when infact it was his own heart thumping because of his guilt to commit the hideous crime and the fear of him getting caught by the policemen. Time is referenced many time in the story, one can interpret that the time perhaps symbolized the incoming death of the old man. The narrator mentions “He was still sitting up in the bed listening; – just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall” (death watches or beetles, their clicking was thought to be an omen of death) (Backpack Literature 43). This further supports the interpretation, that indeed time was foreshadowing the incoming death of the old man.The bedroom and the bed is another great symbol used in the short story, although it symbolizes the opposite of what they actually are. Normally we associate our bedroom with comfort, peace, safety, and most of all our own private place, where we have privacy. Unfortunately for the old man that is not the case, as the narrator violated all of those rules. The narrator entered the room without permission every night with the objective to harm the old man in his own safe domain. The bed, instead of being the resting place of the old man, was used as a weapon to murder him. In addition the whole bed room or resting room was instead turned into the old man’s tomb, as the old man’s dismembered body was buried