Tone Of The Tell Tale Heart

Improved Essays
The Tell-Tale Heart Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story of an unnamed narrator that claims he is nervous but not mad, and takes calmness for sanity. The narrator tells about a certain old man, that he loves, who has never hurt him, but he could not stand the sight of his filmy, blue, vulture eye. The narrator is so afraid of the eye he decides to kill the man so he would no longer have to see it. Poe reaches the greater theme in “The Tell-Tale Heart” by using three literary themes: tone, imagery, and point of view. A short review of these three literary themes will reveal how “The Tell-Tale Heart” reaches the horror genre. The tone of voice the narrator uses in “The Tell-Tale Heart” has a great effect on how the story

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    This is the story of a Butler obsessed with his old master’s ill eye, or as he calls it, “the raven eye”. The Butler claims he is feeling how the eye looks at him and into his soul and how the eye is evil. Therefore, he takes the decision to disappear it for ever, and after a really well planned murder he ends up turning himself in, because he feels the guilt of his actions falling on him. Tell Tale Heart constructs a theme about how culpability can drive people into madness, this is accomplished through the evolution of a proud, astute man, into a violent loony as the story moves through the stages of the murder, the cleaning of the crime, and the arrival of the policemen.…

    • 128 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Then, describe the story's mood. How does the details of the setting create the mood of the story? The story he tells us takes place inside a random old house in 1843. It says that he heard a sound of an old man’s’ heart, “I knew that sound well, too.…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe is an American author who is known for his mystery and macabre short stories and poetry. In the short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart," by Edgar Allan Poe, the story describes the main character killing an old man. The story is written in the perspective of the killer. He states having a disease that sharpened his senses and killing the old man because of the man’s eye that haunted him. The narrator watches the old man for eight nights before deciding to kill him and do the murder.…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The short story Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Alan Poe is a first person narrative about the murder of an old man with a glass eye. The story begins with the narrator trying to convince the reader he is sane. He explains that his accuracy in killing him means that he could not possibly be insane. The message the narrator tries to convey is contradicted by the tone and intensity of how he tells his story.…

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edgar Allen Poe creates an atmosphere of dread and trepidation within his story “The Tell-Tale Heart” through the strategic use of irony and an encompassing first-person narration. One way Poe evokes a sense of foreboding is by introducing the conflict through the use of verbal irony. He displays this when he writes, “I loved the old man… I made up my mind to take the life of the old man” (Poe 303). The contradiction emphasizes the inner twistedness of the narrator. He claims to love the old man, yet the narrator chooses to kill the old man due to paranoia.…

    • 254 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe wrote the story titled “The Tell-Tale Heart” which tells the tale of a deranged man who kills an older man because of his heart and “Evil Eye”.…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe narrates the steps of a murder, a self-conflicted man committed; In which, he slain a man for no reason ,but made himself believe it was commonsense. The images in Poe’s story reveal the emotions: loathsome and guilt because of the old man’s eye. To set the scene the plot goes a little something like this: A man tells a story of how he killed an old innocent man that he loved for no reason, but then he goes to talk about his atrocious "vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it"(11). In the course of the story the murderous man continues to talk about how killing the old man would be a decency to everyone and how normal/sain.…

    • 251 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    He killed an old man because of his eye, chopped up the body, and when killing the man he smothered him with his own bed. The Tell-Tale Heart I believe is about a man driven insane by an eye. The narrator killed an old man due to his eye. “ He shrieked once-once only (Poe, TTH)”.…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “The Tell-Tale Heart” Do you know what it really means to be insane? In the short story The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe it truly captures one mans crazy obsession. Once the man comes to terms with his infatuation with an elderly man's eye. The obsession is followed by insane behavior committed by the narrator. This preposterous behavior eventually leads into a ruthless cold-blooded murder.…

    • 224 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If an unsettling shadow was stalking you as you tiptoed through a pitch-black alleyway, would you flee? Would darkness and evil envelope you, sparking fear and alertness? Fear will instinctively warn you of any danger that passes through your short life, potentially saving it. On the contrary, with every opportunity, there comes a consequence. Warped minds, paranoid nights, and twisted emotions are all repercussions of the double edged word: fear.…

    • 965 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The variation of strange and disturbed characters has been a constant throughout all works of gothic fiction. In The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator murders an old man for which he has an almost familial love. It is clear that the novel’s narrator has a questionable mental state due to his weak grasp upon reality. This is seen in the way he attributes special powers to the old man’s eye and in his incomprehension towards neighbours hearing the final heartbeats of his victim. First of all, the narrator associates fictional powers with the old man’s pale blue eye.…

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe is known for his mysterious and suspenseful short stories. His stories have an air of madness and his character development is impeccable. In the story A Tell-Tale Heart, Poe proves himself even more with his excellent character development to the unnamed narrator. He writes about the narrator who believes himself not to be mad, but is motivated to kill a man because the man's eye scares him. This essay will discuss the character development of the narrator, and how he copes with madness.…

    • 2413 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edgar Allen Poe wrote “The Tell-Tale Heart” and this is a short story narrative told by the narrator describing a murder that he commits. The narrator is trying to `explain how he is sane but has over-acuteness of senses. He lives with an old man who has a vulture-like eye that drives the narrator to kill the old man. The narrator watches the old man for 7 days, and, on the 8th night, when he accidently wakes the old man, and reveals his vulture eye, the narrator attacks and smothers the old man to death.…

    • 1633 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The actions of the characters vary in magnitude of severity, but can both effect their life in some way. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the caretaker begins to show his uneasiness, or regret, when he begins to hear the old man’s heart beating through the floor boards. While sitting and talking to the officers, his remorse began to envelop him. “My head hurt and there was a strange sound in my ears. I talked more, and faster.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” are frightening stories told by nameless narrators. Both narrators, who are clearly disturbed, commit murder in the stories. Through the narrators’ accounts of the events leading up to their respective crimes, Poe’s tales explore themes of abnormal psychology and give the reader insight into the minds and thought processes of two fictional perpetrators of homicide. The two narrators are very similar in their character and in their actions, and both of their stories reflect Romantic ideology.…

    • 1394 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays