“TRUE! – Nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” (Paragraph 1). Throughout the story of The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe develops the central idea of madness and obsession. However, by the end of the story, Poe progresses to the central idea of guilt. Poe advances these central ideas through two methods, with the narrator’s point of view and through structural choices. The narrator’s point of view helps with the development of the reader’s understanding of the unreliable point of view, while the structural choices of repetition, punctuation, and manipulation of time develops the narrator’s madness, obsession, and eventually his guilt. In Paragraph 1, Poe begins the story with the “action” having already occurred. The narrator explains how he is not mad, but he admits he is “nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous”
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Poe uses of text structure in Paragraphs 8, 9, and 10 create tension through a change of pace from a slow pace in 8 with hyphens and commas, such as “waited a long time, very patiently” to a much quicker pace in 9 and 10 that consists of less pauses in the narrator’s speech to create this sense of urgency or panic such as “open – wide, wide open” (Paragraphs 8 and 9). In addition, the narrator’s “uncontrollable terror” was caused by “the beating of the old man’s heart” which further develops the central idea of the narrator’s madness and obsession of being convinced that the heart caused the eye to become its own entity when he hears the sound of the heart beating (Paragraph 11 and 10). Poe uses repetition when the narrator says “what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses” which was stated in Paragraph 1, to emphasize the narrator’s “sanity” (Paragraph
Poe uses of text structure in Paragraphs 8, 9, and 10 create tension through a change of pace from a slow pace in 8 with hyphens and commas, such as “waited a long time, very patiently” to a much quicker pace in 9 and 10 that consists of less pauses in the narrator’s speech to create this sense of urgency or panic such as “open – wide, wide open” (Paragraphs 8 and 9). In addition, the narrator’s “uncontrollable terror” was caused by “the beating of the old man’s heart” which further develops the central idea of the narrator’s madness and obsession of being convinced that the heart caused the eye to become its own entity when he hears the sound of the heart beating (Paragraph 11 and 10). Poe uses repetition when the narrator says “what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses” which was stated in Paragraph 1, to emphasize the narrator’s “sanity” (Paragraph