Ministry of High Education and Scientific Research

University of Baghdad
College of Arts
Department Edgar of English

Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart

By
Mohammed Basher Saleh
&
Hussain Ali

Supervised by
Asst. Lecturer Sara Faisal

31st May 2020

 Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)

Edgar Allan Poe was a writer and critic famous for his dark
mysterious poems and stories, including ‘The Raven’, ‘The Black Cat’,
and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’.
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer poet critic and editor best
known for evocative short stories and poems that captured
imagination and interest off readers around the world.
Is imaginative story line and tales of Mystery and horror giving birth
to the mother in detective story.
Many of Poe’s works including “The Tell-Tale Heart “and “the fall of
the House of Usher”, became literary classics.
Some aspects of Poe’s life, Lucky’s literature is shrouded in mystery
and the line between fact and fiction have been blurred substantially
since his death.
 “The Tell-Tale Heart “

“The Tell-Tale Heart” By Edgar Allan Poe is a gothic fiction story.

The story uses suspense madness guilt, and the descent into
derangement with the concept of insanity. “this trademark horror
Tale shows Poe at the height of his imaginative and autistic powers.
With its or general storyline that the simple first scene a person
which is the narrative in his confession by a murderer. The man
Madness it is obvious from the beginning but in his retelling of the
story the line of Truth and hallucination is left blurred, making the
reader and the events and the madman imagination seem real”.
In his discussions of the short story form, Poe insisted that each
element of a story contribute to its total effect. From the narrator
protestations of his sanity in the opening lines to his confession in the
last.
Edgar Allan Poe guilt and Madness played a big role in The Story plot.
Poe’s short story of murder and Madness made to hunt the dreams of
whole new generation of readers.
Suspend was one of the main factors in the story, Poe writing Style is
very suspenseful and keep even the most reluctant reader engaged.
The story written so well that it is easy visualise. Also due to it’s
amazing to read is great for students to read and study.
The narrator is seemingly unable to Cup with his guilt and eventually
confesses everything to the police ruining his “perfect crime “.
One of the major themes in “the tell-tale heart” is the effects of guilt
or conscience. In the story the narrator’s sanity is definitely in
question he kills the old man because of his is “Evil Eye” but then feels
guilty about it.

In the story we see the devolving of the narrator. At first he is very

proud of himself and consider himself very clever and proud of
himself by getting away with his murder. When the police arrived, he
tells them with cool nerve there is nothing wrong then leads them to
the old man’s room

In the enthusiasm of my
Confidence, I brought chairs
Into the room, and desired
Them here to vest from
Their fatigues ،while I myself
, in the wild audacity of my
Perfect triumph, placed my
Own seat upon the very
Spot beneath which reposed
The corps of the victim. (p. 6)
However، his confidence gets get the better of him. While he is in that
room، his guilty conscience starts to bother him. He begins to imagine
that’s the old man’s heart is still beating.

But, ere long I felt myself

Getting pale and wished
Them gone. My head ached,
And I fancied a ringing in
In my ears…. (p. 6)

The ringing in his ears represents his conscience, and his growing
mental instability. In the end, it becomes obvious the narrator is
losing his mind and it might have been clear to the police all along
why else would day day-to-day and talk about nothing.
Poe’s narrator loves the old man he is not greedy for the Old Man’s
wealth, nor vengeful because of any slight. The murder of the old man
shows the extend to which their narrator separates the Old Man’s
identity from his physical eye.
The narrator sees the eye as a completely separate form the man, and
as result, he is capable of murdering him while maintaining that he
loves him.
 Conclusion

“the tell-tale heart” is one of Poe’s shortest stories, written to

provide a study of paranoia and mental deterioration. A voting of
details held to intensify of narrator’s obsession with specific entities
like the old man’s eye. Heartbeat and claim of his sanity. Pointed and
economic language contributes much to establish the relationship of
language and theme. The story also highlights logical contradictions
contribute to murderous profile. Moreover, there is tension between
Love and Hate capacities of the narrator; he lost the old man but he
hates his vultures’ eye. This paradox mind and explore the physical
logical complication for human mind but people sometimes horn
even those persons whom they love or need in life. The words, the
phrases and the sentences analysed highlight that the narrator has
got a special ability of storytelling in a precise and complete manner
and Poe uses his narration his syntax and plot construction also in the
way to oppose is Naruto and his plea to prove himself sane.
 References

➢ https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/ChristineJohnson43/engli
sh-112-research-paper-the-tell-tale-heart
➢ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328162362_Analy
sis_of_the_Short_Story_The_Tell-
Tale_Heart_by_Edgar_Allan_Poe
➢ https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section6/