The Tell Tale Heart Mood

Improved Essays
Analysis of the story Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe spoke about three settings of the mood which were: Mood and Atmosphere, Locale, and Time of day. Edgar Allan Poe wrote many good stories,but the most intense ones were his horror stories. He wrote a well written literary device of settings to create a dark, threatening tone in his story. In the first part of the story Edgar uses Mood and Atmosphere.You could tell that the narrator is extremely nervous due to the fact of how he was writing.The person who wanted to kill the old man never had intentions of killing him, although since his eye reminded him of that of a vulture,and when it fell upon him, his blood ran col. Therefore, he decided to kill him to be rid of the eye forever. Although the man was very nervous to kill the old man, he would go into his room every night for one whole week at midnight to get up the courage to kill him.Eventually, he did, and it was settled, the one man was dead.
…show more content…
He would always be in the old man's room at midnight, for one whole week.Once it was morning he would go back into the old man's room and talk very generously to him, so he gets a clue that he is being watched by the man. On the eighth night he was more cautious of opening the door to the room. He got even more nervous as the day and night passed. One day during the week, while the man was opening the door, the old man heard him. He moved as if he was being watched, he was startled. Finally, the old man noticed someone was in the house, he shouted “ Who's there?” then keep still and never moved a

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    As stated before, he spied long nights upon the old man to seek his perfect moment to annihilate his pet peeve. The heart of the old man being described as “a low, dull, quick sound, such as watch makes when enveloped in cotton” is an example of how repetition is used to emphasize that the old man is aware of that death is creeping upon him. After he kills the old man, that repetition of the old man's heartbeat shows up again; it represents his guilt for murdering an innocent person because just because of his ignorance toward the “hideous” eye. The power of the “eye” throughout the story overpowered his sense of morality to follow the path of evil. That is where his mental illness comes to play, his illness changed the meaning of evil.…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The setting of a story is the place, time, or language that describes where the primary events take place. The setting of a story essentially sets of the basis of the story. It creates limits for the events of the story based off of where they take place, in the aspect of both time and date. Throughout the years, in not only America, but around the world certain types of pieces become very popular for short periods of time. Some of these will come to be known as eras, others just phases in literature.…

    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The mood, or atmosphere, of a story helps a reader to have a greater understanding of what he or she is reading. The mood is established by the writer’s tone, which is a reflection of the author’s feeling towards the subject. Edgar Allan Poe was a remarkable American writer from the 19th century who mastered the use of mood and tone. He is widely known for his ominous style of writing, especially in his short story titled “The Masque of the Red Death”. In this story, Poe engenders a mood of uneasiness and dread through his use of a dark and mysterious tone.…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe knew he was going to create a suspenseful tale when he wrote this story. “The Tale-Tell Heart” keeps you in suspense throughout the whole story. The man should be put in prison for murder. The old man didn’t do anything to him. So, the man had a giant eye; that shouldn’t bother him.…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Hannah Elliott Mr. Clarke ENG 3U March 6, 2018 Grudging Relationships: T.C Boyle's "Balto" Different Relationships. Husband to Wife. Father to Daughter.…

    • 1683 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is the eighth night and like usual he goes to the old man’s door. He approaches it as he normally does and opens it up slowly. This time though, he laughs because he finds it funny how the old man has no idea about what he has been doing every single night for the past seven nights. He thinks that the old man had heard him laugh because the old man started to move around in his bed. He did not stop opening the door, but instead he opened the door further this time.…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The mood of The Masque of the Red Death is explained in many ways. The ways that it is showed are by the color of the rooms and to how the main characters are actually being portrayed in the story and how the mysterious figures keep showing up and how everybody is afraid of the mysterious figures. It is also showed when Prince Prospero was trying to get away from the Red Death person. The mood of the story is happy at first but tragic in the end. The mood is portrayed in the story by the color of the rooms.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “How do you show someone real love when you don’t know what it feel like” (Dexter). Two stories “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, and Dexter by Jeff Lansing both depict characters that have conflicting emotions caused by insanity. In “The Tell Tale Heart”, the main character is insane; this drives him to kill a man. After he is finished he makes sure there is no evidence. But when the police come he is overcome with a ringing noise in his head that pushes him past the edge and he snaps, telling the police that he is guilty.…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the first story that I read, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman, the author describes the mental state of the main character by making the reader question why the patient has such a great obsession with the yellow wallpaper in her room. Something about the paper fascinates the patient and causes her to believe things are happening to and around her that are not at all. At one point the patient strangely described, “This bed will not move! I tried to push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece of one corner - but it hurt my teeth”(446). This shows how the patient was crazy enough to bite a part of her bed, but then state out the obvious that it hurt her teeth, even though that would have gone through…

    • 1265 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The non-fiction story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator, Montresor is planning revenge on his enemy, Fortunato. In the story, Poe presents multiple moods such as fear, anxiousness and suspicion The author shows these three moves by building suspense using imagery and foreshadowing. In the story, Edgar use his suspicions to change as well as present the mood. in the beginning of the story the author build suspense while explaining his plan. “but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge...…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The Narrator says that the old man has an Evil Eye. The old man may just have cataracts, but every time the narrator sees it, he goes insane. When the light shined on the old man's eye, he freaked out and killed the old man. Only a psychopath would freak out over an eye. He lied to the police.…

    • 214 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the author uses aspects of setting to illustrate the atmosphere of terror. Indeed, he uses aspects such as time and place to put an emphasis on the feeling of terror. Firstly, the old man’s bedroom is pitch black: “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness” (56). Darkness suggests the unknown, which frightens the man since he doesn’t know what to expect. The old man is alone in a place where his sight is lacking.…

    • 296 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    First, the main reason that the narrator killed the old man was the old man’s “Evil eye”. The eye symbolizes the narrator’s control of his “inner demons”. For example, “...to fall upon that vulture eye! It was open — wide, wide open, and my anger increased as it looked straight at me” (Poe). Unless the eye was visible to the narrator, he was otherwise a normal minded man, but for some unknown reason the eye angered him.…

    • 1076 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe utilizes his famously grim writing to tell the story of an unnamed narrator witnessing the literal fall of the Usher family -- Roderick and Madeline of Usher. While the plotline itself is dark and mysterious, Poe employs various literary devices to fully express the creepiness of the story. One useful literary device used in this story is setting. The setting amplifies the emotions and state of the characters and helps to clearly define themes throughout the tale. Poe uses an ominous and eerie setting to convey the central themes relating to madness, family, and fear while unifying the story under the single effect of terror.…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe is often referred as the father of Gothic and horror stories. He has wrote many works of mysterious characters and very bizarre plots lines. Of all his morbid works, they all have a commonality in setting, characters, and Gothic elements in The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Masque of the Red Death. Moreover, Poe has written work with similarities in settings. They all compose of a dark, mysterious atmosphere usually during the night and consisting of a natural event happening.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays