Unlock document.
This document is partially blurred.
Unlock all pages and 1 million more documents.
Get Access
“The Tell-Tale Story”
By Edgar Allen Poe
Essay
The short story of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe is a story from a first person
perspective who, thinks that he isn’t insane, but he wants to kill another person. The person
who was killed in the story was an old man. The reason why the main character wants to
kill the old man it isn’t because of money, but it because of his eyes. Poe, created this
character to demonstrate how a person’s mind and fear can drive him insane based on the
way he thinks, feels, and sees.
In the short story of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe the narrator used the element of plot to
explain how a person’s mind and fear can drive him insane. The story start with the main
character asking, “why will you say that I am mad?” (P.13) To give us a clue where is the
story is going to go and what is going to be about. Then, to prove his sanity the main
character gives the reader reasons why he wants to kill the old man. At first he said, “I
loved the old man. He never wronged me. He had never give me given me an insult. For
his gold I had no desire.” (P.13) As a way to defend himself that he had no desire of taking
advantage of the old men, then he tries to give the reader a better reason, which is “I think
it was his eye! Yes it was this!” and the old man seems guilty of having a vulture eye. After
giving the readers a reason to kill the old men, then the main character started to get in to
an action. For eight nights the main character brought a lantern and watches the old men.
The first seven nights was the same. But, on the eighth night, the old man woke up and
opened his eye because his thumb slipped upon the tin. The narrator seems mad after
seeing the old man’s eye open. Then he decided to get in to the room and dragged him into
the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him until he suffocated to death. To prove that he is
sane, he wants to explain to the reader how cautious he was by dismembering the body on
the bathtub so it will leave no trace. He then hid the body parts under the floorboards.
Police came at 4 AM, to search around the house after the neighbor heard the old men
