The story that I will be analyzing is Edgar Allen Poe’s “The
Tell-Tale Heart”. In this story, there are a few symbols as well as themes. In
this blog post, I will be addressing the theme, setting, plot, point of view,
characterization, irony, and symbolism of this story.
One theme
in this story would be “Living with a guilty conscience is hard.” This is a
theme because the main character’s ultimate doom is a result of his guilty
conscience. When the police come to check out the house, the main character
thinks that the old man’s heart is still beating. His mind starts running wild
and he thinks that the heart beat is getting louder and louder to the point
where he thinks that the police can hear it. This is when he snaps and gives
himself up to the police. The reason that the main character though he heard
the old man’s heart beat is because he had a guilty conscience about killing
him.
The
setting of “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a house. More specifically, the old man’s
house. This story mainly takes place in the old man’s bedroom on a random night
in the year 1843. Every night the main character peeks his head into the old
man’s room to watch him sleep and plot his murder. The mood of this story is
very dark and creepy. The main reason for this is because of the dark bedroom.
The only light that is mentioned in this story is the lantern that the main
character is holding when he watches the old man sleep. Poe even describes the
room as, “black as pitch with the thick darkness.”
One
minor conflict in this story is that the main character doesn’t like the old
man’s eye. This is why he decides that he wants to kill the old man. This leads
to the next minor conflict of the main character sneaking into the old man’s
bedroom to watch him sleep. This is when the main character is trying to find
the perfect time to strike. The second minor conflict leads to the third minor
conflict of the main character waking up the old man one night when he sneaks
into the old man’s room. This last minor conflict leads to the major conflict
of the main character hearing the old man’s heartbeat growing louder and
louder. This is the last straw for the main character. This then leads to the
climax of the story: the main character snaps and kills the old man out of fear
that the neighbors would hear the old man’s heartbeat. The neighbors couldn’t
hear the old man’s heartbeat, but they did hear the old man’s scream. After he
kills the old man, the main character hides the old man’s body beneath the
floor boards. Since the neighbors heard the old man scream, they called the
police and they came to the house to investigate. The main character let them
in and he chatted with them for a while. While they were chatting, the main
character thought that he heard the old man’s heartbeat growing louder and
louder again. The main character’s guilty conscience got to the best of him and
he thought that the police could hear the old man’s heart. The resolution of
this story is that the main character turns himself into the police because he
allows his guilty conscience to get the best of him.
The
point of view of this story is first person. This is because the story is being
told by the main character. The only thoughts that are revealed are the main
character’s. He doesn’t know the old man’s thoughts or anyone else’s, just his
own. Also, throughout the entire story, he refers to himself as “I”. For
example, “I kept quite still and said nothing”, “I scarcely breathed”, and “No
doubt I now grew very pale”. He is telling his own story.
The main
character of this story is a round character. This is because there have been
murderers in the world, so it is believable that he was a murderer. Also, one
might assume that the main character of this story has some sort of mental
illness and today we know that that is a real problem. I would say that the
main character is a dynamic character. This is because he seems kind of normal
at the beginning of the story, but as the story progresses his insanity becomes
more and more apparent. There is no direct characterization of the main
character in this story. However, there is a lot of indirect characterization. For
example, the things that the main character says and the story he tells makes
the readers feel a sense of insanity from him. Poe writes, “Now this is the
point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You
should have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what caution—with what dissimulation
I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week
before I killed him.” The main character is completely contradicting himself in
those quote. First, he is explaining why he isn’t insane, but then proceeds to
talk about killing an old man. This insanity is also conveyed in his personal
thoughts. Specifically, when the old man’s cloudy eye makes the main character’s
“blood [run] cold”. The main thing that proves the main character’s insanity is
the fact that he killed an innocent old man. Therefore, his actions are also
used as a form of indirect characterization. There is no physical descriptions
of the main character given either directly or indirectly.
There are
examples of verbal and situational irony in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Examples of
verbal irony are seen anytime the main character is saying he isn’t mad. This
is because he clearly is insane. The main character says, “How, then, am I mad?
Hearken! And observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story”
right as he is about to explain how and why he murdered the old man. This is a
perfect example of verbal irony. There is also situational irony in “The
Tell-Tale Heart”. An example of situational irony in this story would be at the
end when the main character turns himself in. This is because the police were
not suspecting of him so you think he might get away with it. However, the main
character’s mind gets to the best of him and he ends up turning himself in.
This is not what I expected to happen. Therefore, this is situational irony.
The
symbol in this story is a heart. The heart represents the main character’s
guilty conscience. For example, the main character first hears the heart when
the old man wakes up while he’s in the room. The main character thinks that it
is the old man’s heart, but I think that it is the main character’s heart when
he’s feeling nervous and guilty about plotting the old man’s murder. He feels
so guilty about it that he thinks it’s the old man’s heart and he thinks the
neighbors will hear it so he kills the old man. Now, the heart stops. The main
character disposes of the old man’s body and then the police come to the door. While
he’s talking with the police, he thinks he hears the old man’s heart again and
it starts getting louder and louder. I think that it was actually his own heart
because he had a guilty conscience and he was getting nervous about getting
caught. Once again the heart leads to the main character’s doom as he turns himself
into the police after hearing the heart this time. Every time the main
character starts to feel guilty or nervous again, he hears the heart.
Overall,
this is an interesting story. People who like creepy stories or crime stories
would enjoy this story since it’s about a murder. People who would not like
this story are people who like happy stories or get easily creeped out. There
is some ambiguity in this story. It is left up to you to decide whether or not
the heartbeat that the main character was hearing was his own or if it was the
old man’s in his head. I would recommend this story to other readers.
