The thematic subject may be guilt, but the theme is that the human heart cannot

endure the burden of guilt, especially in the case of murder. The guilty must
confess somehow or be consumed by his/her conscience.
Hint: Whenever you are looking for the theme in a story, ask yourself, what idea
about life comes to my mind after reading this story? Or, is there some kind of
lesson learned by any of the characters? Usually, the theme can be applied to
more than just the story.

Summary and Analysis "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Summary
Even though this is one of Poe's shortest stories, it is nevertheless a profound and, at
times, ambiguous investigation of a man's paranoia. The story gains its intensity by the
manner in which it portrays how the narrator stalks his victim as though he were a
beast of prey; yet, at the same time, elevated by human intelligence to a higher level of
human endeavor, Poe's "murderer" is created into a type of grotesque anomaly. In a
sense, the narrator is worse than a beast; only a human being could so completely
terrorize his victim before finally killing it, as, for example, the narrator deliberately
terrorizes the old man before killing him. And as noted in the introduction to this section,
this story shows the narrator's attempt to rationalize his irrational behavior.
The story begins with the narrator admitting that he is a "very dreadfully nervous" type.
This type is found throughout all of Poe's fiction, particularly in the over-wrought, hypersensitive Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher." As with Usher, the narrator
here believes that his nervousness has "sharpened my senses not destroyed not
dulled them." Thus, he begins by stating that he is not mad, yet he will continue his story
and will reveal not only that he is mad, but that he is terribly mad. His sensitivities allow
him to hear and sense things in heaven, hell, and on earth that other people are not
even aware of. His over-sensitivity becomes in this story the ultimate cause of his
obsession with the old man's eye, which in turn causes him to murder the old man.

Ironically, the narrator offers as proof of his sanity the calmness with which he can
narrate the story.
The story begins boldly and unexpectedly: "I loved the old man," the narrator says,
adding, "He had never wronged me." Next, he reveals that he was obsessed with the old
man's eye "the eye of a vulture a pale blue eye, with a film over it." Without any
real motivation, then, other than his psychotic obsession, he decides to take the old
man's life.
Even though he knows that we, the readers, might consider him mad for this decision,
yet he plans to prove his sanity by showing how "wisely" and with what extreme
precaution, foresight, and dissimulation he executed his deeds. Every night at twelve
o'clock, he would slowly open the door, "oh so gently," and would quietly and cunningly
poke his head very slowly through the door. It would sometimes take him an hour to go
that far "would a madman have been so wise as this?" he asks, thus showing, he
hopes, how thoroughly objective he can be while commenting on the horrible deed he
committed.
For seven nights, he opened the door ever so cautiously, then when he was just inside,
he opened his lantern just enough so that one small ray of light would cast its tiny ray
upon "the vulture eye." The following morning, he would go into the old man's chamber
and speak to him with cordiality and friendship.
On the eighth night, he decided it was now the time to commit the deed. When he says
"I fairly chuckled at the idea," we know that we are indeed dealing with a highly
disturbed personality despite the fact that he seems to present his story very
coherently.
On this particular night, unlike the preceding seven nights, the narrator's hand slipped
on the clasp of the lantern, and the old man immediately "sprang up in bed, crying out
'Who's there?'" He can see nothing because the shutters are all closed. Here, as in
most of Poe's stories, the action proper of the story takes place within a closed
surrounding that is, the murder of the old man is within the confines of his small
bedroom with the shutters closed and in complete darkness.

Furthermore, as in works like "The Cask of Amontillado," the moans of the victim
heighten the terror of the story. The old man's moans were "low stifled sounds that
arose from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe." The narrator knew that
the old manfelt that he was in the room and, dramatically, when he opened his lantern to
let a small ray of light out, it "fell full upon the vulture eye." When he saw that "hideous
veiled eye," he became furious. But he warns the reader not to mistake his "overacuteness of the senses" for madness because he says that suddenly there came to his
ears "a low, dull, quick sound": It was the beating of the old man's heart. It is at this point
in the story that we have our first ambiguity based upon the narrator's over-sensitivity
and madness. The question is, obviously, whose heart does he hear? We all know that
in moments of stress and fright our own heartbeat increases so rapidly that we feel
every beat. Consequently, from the psychological point of view, the narrator thinks that
he is hearing his own increased heartbeat.
As he waits, the heartbeat which he heard excited him to uncontrollable terror, for the
heart seemed to be "beating . . . louder [and] louder." The narrator was suddenly aware
that the old man's heartbeat was so loud that the neighbors might hear it. Thus, the time
had come. He dragged the old man to the floor, pulled the mattress over him and slowly
the muffled sound of the heart ceased to beat. The old man was dead "his eye would
trouble me no more."
Again the narrator attempts to show us that because of the wise precautions he took, no
one could consider him to be mad, that he is, in fact, not mad. First, he dismembered
the old man, and afterward there was not a spot of blood anywhere: "A tub had caught
all ha! ha!" The mere narration here shows how the narrator, with his wild laughter,
has indeed lost his rational faculties. Likewise, the delight he takes in dismembering the
old man is an act of extreme abnormality.
After the dismembering and the cleaning up were finished, the narrator carefully
removed the planks from the floor in the old man's room and placed all the parts of the
body under the floor. As he surveyed his work, the door bell rang at 4 A.M. The police
were there to investigate some shrieks. (To the reader, this is an unexpected turn of

events, but in such tales, the unexpected becomes the normal; see the section on
"Edgar Allan Poe and Romanticism.")
The narrator admitted the police to the house "with a light heart" since the old man's
heart was no longer beating, and he let the police thoroughly search the entire house.
Afterward, he bade the police to sit down, and he brought a chair and sat upon "the very
spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim." The officers were so convinced
that there was nothing to be discovered in the apartment that could account for the
shrieks that they sat around chatting idly. Then suddenly a noise began within the
narrator's ears. He grew agitated and spoke with a heightened voice. The sound
increased; it was "a low, dull quick sound." We should note that the words used here to
describe the beating of the heart are the exact words used only moments earlier to
describe the murder of the old man.
As the beating increased, the narrator "foamed [and] raved" adjectives commonly used
to apply to a mad man. In contrast to the turmoil going on in the narrator's mind, the
police continued to chat pleasantly. The narrator wonders how it was possible that they
did not hear the loud beating which was becoming louder and louder. He can stand the
horror no longer because he knows that "they were making a mockery of my horror . . .
[and] anything was better than this agony!" Thus, as the beating of the heart becomes
intolerable, he screams out to the police: "I admit the deed! tear up the planks! here,
here! it is the beating of his hideous heart!"
Early commentators on the story saw this as merely another tale of terror or horror in
which something supernatural was happening. To the modern reader, it is less
ambiguous; the beating of the heart occurs within the narrator himself. It is established
at the beginning of the story that he is over-sensitive that he can hear and feel things
that others cannot. At the end of the story, if there really were a beating heart up under
the floor boards, then the police would have heard it. Clearly, the narrator, who has just
finished the gruesome act of dismembering a corpse, cannot cope with the highly
emotional challenge needed when the police are searching the house. These two
factors cause his heart rate to accelerate to the point that his heartbeat is pounding in
his ears so loudly that he cannot stand the psychological pressure any longer. Thus he

confesses to his horrible deed. The narrator's "tell-tale" heart causes him to convict
himself.
We have here, then, a narrator who believes that he is not mad because he can logically
describe events which seem to prove him to be mad. The conciseness of the story and
its intensity and economy all contribute to the total impact and the overall unity of effect.
In the narrator's belief that he is not mad, but that he actually heard the heart of the old
man still beating, Poe has given us one of the most powerful examples of the capacity of
the human mind to deceive itself and then to speculate on the nature of its own
destruction.

The Tell-Tale Heart

Poe, Edgar Allan

Summary
The unnamed narrator of the story is a "dreadfully nervous" character who disputes the allegation
that he might be crazy. He contends that his disposition arises from a heightening of the senses:
"Above all was the sense of hearing acute" (74). The narrator provides care for a wealthy elderly
man. For some inexplicable reason, the narrator becomes obsessed with the diseased eye of the old
man. The narrator likens it to a vultures eye and is so haunted by the Evil Eye that he decides to
murder the old man.
He meticulously plans the murder. After one week of preparation, the narrator charges into the old
mans bedroom after midnight and kills him using the heavy bed the victim had been sleeping in to
either crush or suffocate him. Even after the murder, the victims heart continues beating for many
minutes. The narrator carefully dismembers the body in a tub. He conceals all the pieces under the
floor boards.
At four oclock in the morning, three policemen arrive. A neighbor heard a scream and notified the
police. They are here to investigate. The narrator maintains his composure and even entertains the
police. After all, he has committed the perfect crime. Suddenly, he hears a repetitive noise like the
ticking of a watch. At first soft, the sound grows louder and louder. No one else hears it. What is the
cause of the noise--paranoia, his conscience, auditory hallucinations, a supernatural clue, or (most
likely) the sound of his own pounding heart? The narrator can no longer tolerate the thumping and

confesses to the murder: "I admit the deed!--tear up the planks!--here, here!--it is the beating of his
hideous heart!" (78)

Commentary
The Tell-Tale Heart is a classic example of the psychological story. The frenetic diction of the narrator
and his repeated pleas to the reader ("How, then, am I mad?" (74) and "but why will you say that I
am mad?" (74) only reinforce the suspicion that he is mentally ill. Beyond his manic monologue,
there is the narrators creepy fascination with the old mans eye as further proof of lunacy. What is it
about that eye--"a pale blue eye, with a film over it" [p74]--that so vexes the narrator? Clinically, the
description suggests a common cataract--hardly a reason to murder the old man.
The terror on display is both internal (the mind of the narrator) and external (the grisly murder). The
passage of time in this short story is noteworthy. Time can be unbearably slow and astonishingly
fast. Poes emphasis on repetition and rhythm (ticking and beating) contributes to the tension of the
tale.
This horror story is actually about the demise of two men. It is not just a masterful portrait of
madness but an example of how guilt can make an already crazed man even crazier. The narrator
asserts "I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell" (74). Odds are
he truly did.

Miscellaneous
The story was originally published in 1843.

Primary Source
The Gold-Bug and Other Tales

Publisher
Dover Thrift Edition

Place Published
New York

Edition
1991

Editor
Stanley Appelbaum

Page Count
5

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"

When reading a story of this nature, one must be reminded not to take horror in Poe too
autobiographically. The narrator's "nervousness" is a frequently used device of Poe to establish
tone and plausibility through heightened states of consciousness. "The Tell-Tale Heart" was first
published in James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer in January 1843, and it appeared again in The
Broadway Journal on August 23, 1845.
Setting

The story covers a period of approximately eight days with

most of the important action occurring each night around
midnight. The location is the home of an elderly man in which
the narrator has become a caretaker.
Characters

This story contains a nameless narrator, an old man and the

police who enter near the end of the story after the mention,
that they were called by a neighbor whose suspicions had been
aroused upon hearing a scream in the night. The protagonist or
narrator becomes the true focus of the tale. This narrator may
be male or female because Poe uses only "I" and "me" in
reference to this character. Most readers assume that the
narrator is a male because of a male author using a first
person point of view; however, this story can also be plausible
when the derranged protagonist appears as a woman. Most
critics would argue this point by saying that Poe would
"assume" that the reader would "know" that the protagonist
was male, therefore, he would see no need to identify his
sexless narrator. However, Poe was a perfectionist who left
very little to guesswork. Could it be that this was no accident
or something that he thought would be universally understood,
but that Poe was creating a story whose impact could be
changed simply by imagining this horrendous and vile deed
being committed by a woman?
Point of View

Poe writes this story from the perspective of the murderer of

the old man. When an author creates a situation where the

protagonist tells a personal account, the overall impact of the

story is heightened. The narrator, in this particular story, adds
to the overall effect of horror by continually stressing to the
reader that he or she is not mad, and tries to convince us of
that fact by how carefully this brutal crime was planned and
executed.
Style and Interpretation

Poe's story is a case of domestic violence that occurs as the

result of an irrational fear. To the narrator that fear is
represented by the old man's eye. Through the narrator, Poe
describes this eye as being pale blue with a film over it, and
resembling that of a vulture. Does the narrator have any
reason to fear the old man or his eye? Is it this phobia that
evokes the dark side, and eventually drives the narrator to
madness? Or could Poe be referring to a belief whose origins
could be traced back to Greece and Rome?
The belief in the evil eye dates back to ancient times, and even
today, is fairly common in India and the countries bordering
the Mediterranean Sea. References are made to it in Jewish,
Islamic, Buddist and Hindu faiths. The belief centers around the
idea that those who possess the evil eye have the power to
harm people or their possessions by merely looking at them.
Wherever this belief exists, it is common to assign the evil
eye as the cause of unexplainable illnesses and misfortunes of
any kind.
To protect oneself from the power of the eye, certain measures
can be taken. In Muslim areas, the color blue is painted on the
shutters of the houses, and found on beads worn by both
children and animals. There is also a specific hand gesture
named the "Hand of Fatima," named after the daughter of
Mohammed. This name is also given to an amulet in the shape
of hand that is worn around the neck for protection. In some
locations, certain phrases, such as " as God will" or "God bless
it" are uttered to protect the individual from harm. In extreme

cases, the eye, whether voluntarily or not, must be destroyed.

One Slavic folktale relates the story of the father who blinded
himself for fear of harming his own children with his evil eye.
Would Poe have had knowledge of this rather strange belief? It
is altogether possible that he would have, which creates
another interesting twist to this story. Maybe the narrator who
tries to convince us that madness is not really the issue, is
telling the truth. Maybe this vile act is necessary in order to
destroy the power of the old man's evil eye!
Theme

Human nature is a delicate balance of light and dark or good

and evil. Most of the time this precarious balance is
maintained; however, when there is a shift, for whatever
reason, the dark or perverse side surfaces. How and why this
"dark side" emerges differs from person to person. What may
push one individual "over the edge" will only cause a raised
eyebrow in another. In this case, it is the "vulture eye" of the
old man that makes the narrator's blood run cold. It is this
irrational fear which evokes the dark side, and eventually leads
to murder. The narrator plans, executes and conceals the
crime; however, "[w]hat has been hidden within the self will
not stay concealed...." (Silverman 208) The narrator speaks of
an illness that has heightened the senses: "Above all was the
sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heavens and in
the earth. I heard many things in hell." The narrator repeatedly
insists that he(she) is not mad; however the reader soon
realizes that the fear of the vulture eye has consumed the
narrator, who has now become a victim to the madness which
he had hoped to elude.

The Ruined City. Analysis: The Old English poem, The Ruined City describes a place
of ruins and muses of the fate and fortunes of it's former inhabitants. The poet may have had in
mind "A Roman City", the former splendor of which is contrasted with it's dilapidation in.

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)

Summary
An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing the reader and claiming that he is nervous but
not mad. He says that he is going to tell a story in which he will defend his sanity yet confess to
having killed an old man. His motivation was neither passion nor desire for money, but rather a fear
of the mans pale blue eye. Again, he insists that he is not crazy because his cool and measured
actions, though criminal, are not those of a madman. Every night, he went to the old mans
apartment and secretly observed the man sleeping. In the morning, he would behave as if everything
were normal. After a week of this activity, the narrator decides, somewhat randomly, that the time is
right actually to kill the old man.
When the narrator arrives late on the eighth night, though, the old man wakes up and cries out. The
narrator remains still, stalking the old man as he sits awake and frightened. The narrator
understands how frightened the old man is, having also experienced the lonely terrors of the night.
Soon, the narrator hears a dull pounding that he interprets as the old mans terrified heartbeat.
Worried that a neighbor might hear the loud thumping, he attacks and kills the old man. He then
dismembers the body and hides the pieces below the floorboards in the bedroom. He is careful not
to leave even a drop of blood on the floor. As he finishes his job, a clock strikes the hour of four. At
the same time, the narrator hears a knock at the street door. The police have arrived, having been
called by a neighbor who heard the old man shriek. The narrator is careful to be chatty and to
appear normal. He leads the officers all over the house without acting suspiciously. At the height of
his bravado, he even brings them into the old mans bedroom to sit down and talk at the scene of the
crime. The policemen do not suspect a thing. The narrator is comfortable until he starts to hear a low
thumping sound. He recognizes the low sound as the heart of the old man, pounding away beneath
the floorboards. He panics, believing that the policemen must also hear the sound and know his
guilt. Driven mad by the idea that they are mocking his agony with their pleasant chatter, he
confesses to the crime and shrieks at the men to rip up the floorboards.

Analysis
Poe uses his words economically in the Tell-Tale Heartit is one of his shortest storiesto provide
a study of paranoia and mental deterioration. Poe strips the story of excess detail as a way to
heighten the murderers obsession with specific and unadorned entities: the old mans eye, the

heartbeat, and his own claim to sanity. Poes economic style and pointed language thus contribute to
the narrative content, and perhaps this association of form and content truly exemplifies paranoia.
Even Poe himself, like the beating heart, is complicit in the plot to catch the narrator in his evil game.
As a study in paranoia, this story illuminates the psychological contradictions that contribute to a
murderous profile. For example, the narrator admits, in the first sentence, to being dreadfully
nervous, yet he is unable to comprehend why he should be thought mad. He articulates his selfdefense against madness in terms of heightened sensory capacity. Unlike the similarly nervous and
hypersensitive Roderick Usher in The Fall of the House of Usher, who admits that he feels mentally
unwell, the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart views his hypersensitivity as proof of his sanity, not a
symptom of madness. This special knowledge enables the narrator to tell this tale in a precise and
complete manner, and he uses the stylistic tools of narration for the purposes of his own sanity plea.
However, what makes this narrator madand most unlike Poeis that he fails to comprehend the
coupling of narrative form and content. He masters precise form, but he unwittingly lays out a tale of
murder that betrays the madness he wants to deny.
Another contradiction central to the story involves the tension between the narrators capacities for
love and hate. Poe explores here a psychological mysterythat people sometimes harm those
whom they love or need in their lives. Poe examines this paradox half a century before Sigmund
Freud made it a leading concept in his theories of the mind. Poes narrator loves the old man. He is
not greedy for the old mans wealth, nor vengeful because of any slight. The narrator thus eliminates
motives that might normally inspire such a violent murder. As he proclaims his own sanity, the
narrator fixates on the old mans vulture-eye. He reduces the old man to the pale blue of his eye in
obsessive fashion. He wants to separate the man from his Evil Eye so he can spare the man the
burden of guilt that he attributes to the eye itself. The narrator fails to see that the eye is the I of the
old man, an inherent part of his identity that cannot be isolated as the narrator perversely imagines.
The murder of the old man illustrates the extent to which the narrator separates the old mans
identity from his physical eye. The narrator sees the eye as completely separate from the man, and
as a result, he is capable of murdering him while maintaining that he loves him. The narrators desire
to eradicate the mans eye motivates his murder, but the narrator does not acknowledge that this act
will end the mans life. By dismembering his victim, the narrator further deprives the old man of his
humanity. The narrator confirms his conception of the old mans eye as separate from the man by
ending the man altogether and turning him into so many parts. That strategy turns against him when
his mind imagines other parts of the old mans body working against him. The narrators newly
heightened sensitivity to sound ultimately overcomes him, as he proves unwilling or unable to

distinguish between real and imagined sounds. Because of his warped sense of reality, he obsesses
over the low beats of the mans heart yet shows little concern about the mans shrieks, which are
loud enough both to attract a neighbors attention and to draw the police to the scene of the crime.
The police do not perform a traditional, judgmental role in this story. Ironically, they arent terrifying
agents of authority or brutality. Poes interest is less in external forms of power than in the power that
pathologies of the mind can hold over an individual. The narrators paranoia and guilt make it
inevitable that he will give himself away. The police arrive on the scene to give him the opportunity to
betray himself. The more the narrator proclaims his own cool manner, the more he cannot escape
the beating of his own heart, which he mistakes for the beating of the old mans heart. As he
confesses to the crime in the final sentence, he addresses the policemen as [v]illains, indicating his
inability to distinguish between their real identity and his own villainy.

In the story, "The Tell-Tale Heart", by Edgar Allen Poe there are many aspects for
someone who is interested in the workings of the human mind. As you read this
story you will see the breakdown of the human mind and how paranoia and insanity
go hand in hand. Here is partial description in reference to the narrator's paranoia.
The narrator sees the eyes of the old man as "that of a vulture a pale blue eye,
with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold" (Poe 922). Because
of the old man's eye the narrator's paranoia makes him feel he must kill the old man
to "rid myself of the eye forever" (Poe 922). Insanity is another psychological point
which stands out, the narrator takes care of the old man seeing to his comforts and
making sure he is okay all the while planning to kill him because of his eye. He
relays the story of how for seven nights he has been trying to get up the courage to
kill the old man he finally resolves to complete the task. On the eighth night he has
finally come all the way into the room, he shines the lights in the room so he can see
and the light immediately goes to the vulture eye. He starts hearing a sound which
he knows is the beating of the old man's heart. He then relates that "have I not told
you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of senses" (Poe 923).
This is showing his level of insanity has increased as no one can really hear the
beating of the old man's heart. After he kills the old man he then goes on to tell us
how he finished the murder. He wants to make sure we understand he is still not
mad he knows exactly what he is doing. He dismembers the old man, buries him
under the house and checks everything to make sure there is no evidence of any

wrong. Just as he has completed these tasks the police knock on the door. The
narrator proceeds to explain to the police the sound the neighbor heard was him.
The old man has gone to the country; he shows them around the house to
acknowledge that all is as it should be. He then sits down to talk with the police, and
his insanity starts to manifests itself again as he hears the beating of the old man's
heart. He can no longer stand the pressure and confesses to the murder.

In the story, "The Tell-Tale Heart", by Edgar Allen Poe there are many aspects for
someone who is interested in the workings of the human mind. ( there are many
aspects which can attract someone who is interested in the workings of the human
mind.)As you read this story, you will see the breakdown of the human mind and how
paranoia and insanity go hand in hand. Here is partial description in reference to the
narrator's paranoia. The narrator sees the eyes of the old man as "that of a vulture
a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold" (Poe
922). Because of the old man's eye the narrator's paranoia makes him feel that he
must kill the old man to "rid myself of the eye forever" (Poe 922). Insanity is another
psychological point which stands out, the narrator takes care of the old man seeing
to his comforts and making sure he is okay all the while planning to kill him because
of his eye. He relays the story of how for seven nights he has been trying to get up
the courage to kill the old man, he finally resolves to complete the task. On the
eighth night, he has finally come all the way into the room, he shines the lights in the
room for a better view and the light immediately goes to the vulture eye. He starts
hearing a sound which he knows is the beating of the old man's heart. He then
relates that "have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over
acuteness of senses" (Poe 923). This is showing his level of insanity has increased
as no one can really hear the beating of the old man's heart. After he kills the old
man he then goes on to tell us how he finished the murder. He wants to make sure
we us to understand he is still not mad because he knows exactly what he is doing.
He dismembers the old man, buries him under the house and checks everything to
make sure so that there is no evidence of any wrong. Just as he has completed

these tasks the police knock on the door. The narrator proceeds to explain to the
police the sound the neighbor heard was him his. The old man has gone to the
country; he shows them around the house to acknowledge that all is as it should be.
He then sits down to talk with the police, and his insanity starts to manifests itself
again as he hears the beating of the old man's heart. He can no longer stand the
pressure

and

confesses

to be the

murder.

I think that you should let others know how you want them to correct your writing. My
advice is that you should use punctuation correctly and effectively and that you
should shorten your sentences and divide your writing into some paragraphs.
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
Edgar Allan Poe
The following entry presents criticism of Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843).
See also, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Criticism and "The Fall of the House of
Usher" Criticism. For information on Poe's complete career, seeNCLC, Volumes 55,
and 117.
Among the many strange and complex short stories of Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart" has
come to be known as one of the most mysterious and psychologically intriguing. Poe's
preoccupations with death, with madness, and with troubled human relationships all find
their culmination in this brief narrative. The murder of the old man and its aftermath,
which form the center of the story, are told with dazzling clarity, a clarity that itself
obscures the meaning of the act and calls into question the emotional stability of the
unnamed narrator. The subjectivism of this story, the confusion of the line between
reader and character within the narrative, and the use of language support the claim
that Poe prefigures and indeed develops many of the tropes usually associated with
more recent fiction.
Biographical Information
"The Tell-Tale Heart" was written and published during the most furiously productive
phase of Poe's life, when he lived in Philadelphia with his young wife Virginia (a cousin)
and her mother. During this period he was also editing the literary journal Burton 's
Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1840 he had collected his previously published tales
into Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, including the popular "The Fall of the House

of Usher" and the grim "King Pest." Now in his forties, Poe had become a well-known
writer of short fiction, even though his education was uneven (he left the University of
Virginia during his first year) and he experienced constant financial struggles. Early
works of poetry had been largely neglected by the literary scene, but five stories were
published in the Philadelphia Sunday Courier in 1832. From that point onward, Poe's
stories appeared in journals throughout the United States. Yet periodic setbacks in his
fortunes (his wife's illness, continuing alienation from his uncle John Allen, who had
raised him, and his inability to secure a stable source of income) triggered fits of
depression, which Poe tended to aggravate by turning to alcohol. In the stories of this
period, the mood of Poe's
works varies considerably, between the fantastic narrative of a sleep-walker in
"Mesmeric Revelation," the strangely wrought "Life in Death" a study of the relationship
between art and life, and the horrific portrayal of murder in "The Black Cat." The last
story is one that is often linked to "The Tell-Tale Heart," as both have the form of a
narrated confession of violence and murder without directly addressing the reason for
the crime. These two stories mark Poe's increasing interest in and ability to portray the
psychologically gruesome and the supernatural, as well as his return to poetry.
Plot and Major Characters
The sparse plot of "The Tell-Tale Heart" concerns the "murder aforethought" of an old
man, who is never named nor described fully, by the narrator, who is also never
identified. Its narration is clearly retrospective but otherwise unlocated; the
circumstances of the confession of this crime are never described, and so it seems that
the narrator is speaking directly and passionately to the reader. The sequence of events
is simple enough: the narrator is disturbed by the eye of an old man; he complains that
"one of his eyes resembled that of a vulturea pale blue eye, with a film over it." The
narrator decides to rid himself of this eye by killing the old man. This is accomplished
after seven painstaking nights of creeping into the man's room in order to see if the
offending eye is open. It is only on the eighth night that the old man opens his eyes, and
the crime is committed. How the man is actually killed is not described in detail: the
narrator merely says that he pulls "the heavy bed over him." This same night, he
dismembers the body and hides it beneath the floorboards of the man's room. Soon
after, three police officers, who also remain anonymous and characterless, arrive
(presumably to investigate the terrified shriek of the old man). Although the narrator
takes pride in his calm comportment toward the officers as they sit directly above the
hiding-place of the old man's body, he discerns a noise, "a low, dull, quick sound" that

he identifies as the heartbeat of the old man. In rage and desperation, convinced that
the police officers also hear this noise and have detected his guilt, he confesses to the
crime. At this point the narrative abruptly ends.
Major Themes
The slow and apparently reasonable beginning of the narrative gradually quickens
toward its feverish conclusion; the language of the story, particularly the use of dashes
to express the obscure connections of the tale and the repetitions that mark the
emphatic denial of insanity, is one of its most striking features. The nineteenth-century
concern with death and madness appear in many of Poe's stories, but in "The Tell-Tale
Heart" these themes seem to have been distilled into an unparalleled intensity. The
strange vacillation between bare narration (the reader is given no setting beyond the
walls of the house, no history beyond the events of the plot, and no characterization at
all beyond what may be gleaned from the narrator's excited tale) and the magnification
of critical moments (the narrator's patient vigil at the door of the old man's room and the
repetition of the heartbeat that provokes the narrator's confession). Indeed, as in
dreams, the sense of time in the story is a distorted reflection of "ordinary" time; it is this
strangeness, along with the terrible clarity of the narration and the vociferous
protestations of sanity, that lead the reader to suspect the emotional health of the
narrator. The confession is not an explanation, although it superficially appears to be
one: the eye of the old man, which becomes an obsessive object of the narrator's
attention. The internal tension of the narrator, which leads him to understand the terror
of the old man and to anticipate the responses of his listener/reader, dramatically
underscores the uncertain status of the narrative: as reality or hallucination, involving
two persons or a single split subject, and the audience to which it is directed.
Critical Reception
One of Poe's most popular and anthologized stories, "The Tell-Tale Heart" is considered
a stunning example of the deep connections between the Gothic tale and modern
fiction, especially in its innovative use of the subjective narrative and its psychologically
rich portrayal of a human situation that remains simultaneously strange and familiar in
its intimacy. Poe's popularity in Europe, exemplified by Jacques Lacan's celebrated
study of "The Purloined Letter", reflects his works' affinities with psychoanalytic tropes,
such as the unconscious, repression, and the significance of the gaze. Many critics
claim that the madness or dreamlike quality of the narrative is unambiguous, and have
gone so far as to diagnose the narrator with paranoid schizophrenia, a medical definition

unknown in Poe's age. The frequently cited obsession with time and mortality that
inhabits Poe's writing is evident in "The Tell-Tale Heart" as well. This has led some
recent scholars to argue that the narrator is struggling against his own death and in
James W. Gargano's words "the tyranny of time," which he has projected onto the figure
of the old man. The narrative has suggested to others, particularly Christopher Benfey,
an internalized conflict between the need for interpersonal contact and the desire to
protect oneself from the vulnerability that arises with such contact. The style of writing
draws the reader into the narrative by appearing to transcribe directly the passionate
confession of a fascinating if ultimately repulsive character. The combination of
surrealism and immediacy that constitutes the peculiarity of the narrative disrupts simple
or conventional interpretations. The psychological complexity of both the content and the
form of "The Tell-Tale Heart" has continued to grip both the critical and popular
imagination, and anticipates more recent fictional explorations into the concealed
intricacy of the human condition.

Plot Summary
By Michael J. Cummings... 2005
.

........The narrator has been so nervous that he jumps at the slightest sound. He can hear all things on
heaven and earth, he says, and some things in hell. But he maintains that he is not mad. To prove his
sanity, he says, he will calmly tell the reader his story.
.......One day, he decided to take the life of an old man for no other reason except that he had an eye
resembling that of a vulturea pale blue eye with a film over it. Over time, it became so unbearable to
look upon it that the narrator had no other choice but to get rid of the old man. The way he went about the
task, with such calculation and cunning, demonstrates that he is not mad, the narrator says.
.......At midnight, he would turn the knob on the door of the old mans bedroom. Then he would open the
door ever so slowly. In fact, it would take him an hour to open the door wide enough to poke his head into
the room. Would a madman have been so cautious? Then he would open a little slot on his lantern,
releasing light, to check the hideous eye. For seven straight nights, it was closed, and so it was
impossible to do the work, he says, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye.
.......On the eighth night, the narrator opened the door with greater caution than before. As before, the
room was completely dark. He was about to shine the lantern when the old man sat up and said, Whos
there? The narrator did not answer but remained in place, not moving a muscle, for an entire hour. All the
while, the old man continued to sit up, wonderingthe narrator speculatedwhat he had heard. The wind?
A mouse? A cricket?
.......Although he did not hear the old man lie down again, the narrow open the lantern slot just a sliver,
then wider. The beam fell upon the open vulture eye. Then the narrator heard a low, muffled soundthe
beating of the mans heart! Or so he believed. The heartbeat louderthen louder and louder. Would a
neighbor hear it?
.......Shouting, the narrator rushed into the room. After the old man shrieked, the narrator quickly threw
himto the floor and pulled the bed on top of him. The heart continued to beat, but only softly. Moments
later, the beating stopped. The narrator checked his pulse. Nothing. The old man was dead. After moving
the bed aside, the narrator took up three floorboards, secured the old man between the joists, and
replaced the boards. The narrator felt proud of himself, for there was no blood to wash out, no other task
of any kind to do.
.......At 4 a.m., just when he had finished his work, the narrator answered a knock at his front door. When
he opened it, three policemen entered, saying a neighbor had reported hearing a shriek, possibly

indicating foul play. They needed to search the premises. I smiled, the narrator says, for what had I to
fear?
.......After welcoming the police, he told them the shriek was his own; he had cried out during a dream. He
also told them that the old man who lived in the house was away in the country. Next, he took the police
all over the house, inviting them to search everythingthoroughly. After they entered the old mans
chamber, the narrator pointed out that the old mans possessions had not been disturbed.
.......In his swelling self-confidence, the narrator brought in chairs and invited the policemen to rest. I
myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which
reposed the corpse of the victim, the narrator says.
.......The police appeared completely satisfied that nothing criminal had occurred in the house. However,
they continued to chat idly, staying much longer than the narrator had expected. By and by, he began to
hear a rhythmic ringing in his head. While he was talking with the police, the noisewhich had the
cadence of a ticking watch but a much louder soundpersisted, becoming more distinct. A moment later,
he concluded that the rhythmic ringing was outside of him. Still, he talked on, now more loudly. The
policemen did not seem to hear the noise.
.......When it grew even louder, the narrator rose and began arguing with the officers about trivial matters,
punctuating his conversation with wild hand movements. He also paced back and forth. Then he raved
and cursed and dragged his chair over the floorboards, all in an apparent attempt to drown out the noise
he was hearing. Meanwhile, it grew still louder, and louder, and louder. How was it possible that they
could not hear it?
.......In fact, they must have heard it, the narrator decided. And they must have suspected him of a crime
all along. Their calm manner and idle chatter were part of a ruse to mock him. Unable to brook their
counterfeit behavior any longer, unable to endure the sound any longer, the narrator brought the whole
business to a crashing climax.
......."Villains! I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! tear up the planks! here, here! it is
the beating of his hideous heart!"
/.

Setting
The story opens in an undisclosed locale, possibly a prison, when the narrator tells
readers that he is not mad. To defend his sanity, he tells a story which he believes will
prove him sound of mind. His story is set in a house occupied by the narrator and an
old man. The time of the events in the story is probably the early 1840's, when Poe
wrote the story. The action in the narrator's story takes place over eight days.

Characters
The Narrator: Deranged unnamed person who tries to convince the reader that he is sane. The narrator's
gender is not identified, but Poe probably intended him to be a man. Here is why: Poe generally wrote
from a male perspective, often infusing part of himself into his main characters. Also, in major short
stories in which he identifies the narrator by genderstories such as "The Black Cat," "The Cask of
Amontillado," and "The Fall of the House of Usher"the narrator is male. Finally, the narrator of "A TellTale Heart" exhibits male characteristics, including (1) A more pronounced tendency than females to
commit violent acts. Statistics demonstrate overwhelmingly that murder is a male crime. (2) Physical
strength that would be unusual in a female. The narrator drags the old man onto the floor and pulls the
bed on top of him, then tears up floorboards and deposits the body between joists. (3) The narrator
performs a man's chore by bringing four chairs into the old man's bedroom, one for the narrator and three
for the policemen. If the narrator were a woman, the policemen probably would have fetched the chairs.
But they did not.
The Old Man: Seemingly harmless elder who has a hideous "evil eye" that unnerves the narrator.
Neighbor: Person who hears a shriek coming from the house of the narrator and the old man, then
reports it to the police.

Three Policemen: Officers who search the narrator's house after a neighbor reports hearing a shriek.
Type of Work Short story in the horror genre that focuses on the psyche of the narrator .

Year of Publication
"The Tell-Tale Heart" was first published in the winter of 1843 in The Pioneer, a Boston magazine.

Themes
Theme 1: A human being has a perverse, wicked sideanother selfthat can goad him into doing evil
things that have no apparent motive. This is the same theme of another Poe story, "The Black Cat." The
narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" admits in the second paragraph of the story that he committed a
senseless crime, saying: "Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved
the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire."
However, he does note that his evil deed, murder, was not entirely unprovoked; for the old man he killed
had a hideous eye that unnerved him. Unable to look upon it any longer, he decided to kill the old man.
Theme 2: Fear of discovery can bring about discovery. At the end of the story, the narrator begins to
crack under the pressure of a police investigation, hearing the sound of the murdered man's beating
heart, and tells the police where he hid the body. Fear of discovery is the principle under which lie
detectors work.
Theme 3: The evil within is worse than the evil without.. The old man has a hideous, repulsive eye;
outwardly, he is ugly. But, as the narrator admits, he is otherwise a harmless, well-meaning person. The
narrator, on the other hand, is inwardly ugly and repulsive, for he plans and executes murder; his soul is
more repulsive than the old man's eye.

Point of View
The story is told in first-person point of view by an unreliable narrator. The narrator is obviously deranged,
readers learn during his telling of his tale, even though he declares at the outset that he is sane. As in
many of his other short stories, Poe does not name the narrator. A possible explanation for this is that the
unnamed narrator becomes every human being, thereby enhancing the universality of the short story. In
other words, the narrator represents anyone who has ever acted perversely or impulsivelyand then had
to pay for his deed.

Prose Beats Like a Heart

From time to time, Poe uses a succession of short sentences or word groups, creating a rhythm not unlike
that of a heartbeat. Note the following examples from the story:
Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!
I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could to maintain the ray
upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.
Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! no, no? They heard! they suspected! they
KNEW! they were making a mockery of my horror! this I thought, and this I think. But anything
was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those
hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now again hark! louder!

louder! louder! LOUDER! "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! tear up
the planks! here, here! it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

Figures of Speech
As in other works of his, Poe uses many figures of speech. Examples are the following:
Anaphora
Anaphora is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of a clause or
another group of words. Anaphora imparts emphasis and balance. Here are boldfaced examples from
"The Tell-Tale Heart":
I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.
With what cautionwith what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work!
He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself, "It
isnothing but the wind in the chimney, it isonly a mouse crossing the floor," or, "It is merely a
cricket which hasmade a single chirp."
There was nothing to wash outno stain of any kindno blood-spot whatever.
They heard!they suspected!they KNEW!they were making a mockery of my horror!
Personificaton
Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the
victim. [Here, Death is a person.]
Simile
So I opened ityou cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthilyuntil at length a single dim ray like
the thread of the spider shot out from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye. [The simile is the
comparsion of the ray to the thread of the spider with the use of the word like.
Itincreased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. [The simile is
the comparison of the heartbeat to a drumbeat.]
His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness. . . . [The simile is the comparison of the
darkness to pitch.]
Alliteration
Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.
Meanwhile, the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.
It is the beating of his hideous heart!
Irony
I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.

Author Information
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston. After being orphaned at age two, he was taken
into the home of a childless coupleJohn Allan, a successful businessman in Richmond, Va., and his wife.
Allan was believed to be Poes godfather. At age six, Poe went to England with the Allans and was
enrolled in schools there. After he returned with the Allans to the U.S. in 1820, he studied at private
schools, then attended the University of Virginia and the U.S. Military Academy, but did not complete
studies at either school. After beginning his literary career as a poet and prose writer, he married his
young cousin, Virginia Clemm. He worked for several magazines and joined the staff of the New York

Mirror newspaper in 1844. All the while, he was battling a drinking problem. After the Mirror published his
poem The Raven in January 1845, Poe achieved national and international fame. Besides pioneering
the development of the short story, Poe invented the format for the detective story as we know it today. He
also was an outstanding literary critic. Despite the acclaim he received, he was never really happy
because of his drinking and because of the deaths of several people close to him, including his wife in
1847. He frequently had trouble paying his debts. It is believed that heavy drinking was a contributing
cause of his death in Baltimore on October 7, 1849.