...In the excerpt “from The Tell-tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe creates the guilty character of an unnamed narrator through indirect characterization. Using the components of the characters internal thoughts, actions/gestures, and character motivation, Poe unravels a story about a guilty conscience and reveals that guilt is inevitable, and will hit you at one point or another. Internal thoughts are found throughout the whole excerpt. In the beginning of the excerpt, the speaker introduces the main character, who trouts to his door thinking, “...light heart,- for what had I now to fear?” This internal thought leaves room to assume all is not as it seems. No one should walk to the door questioning what they have to fear, unless of course...
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...Guilt can make you do things that aren’t the best for your situation and make problems worse. These two stories that are a part of this essay are two ideas of what guilt can make you do. In the Monkey’s Paw and the Tell-Tale Heart, their cause-and-effect relationship is that being greedy or selfish can cause guilt and the feeling of suspense from the guilt causes them to do things that aren’t sensible. Consequently, guilt and the reaction to guilt causes complications. In the Monkey’s Paw, the White family was selfish and wish for money. As a consequence, their son was killed causing them to feel remorse. Mrs. White felt miserable and thoughtlessly wanted her son back no matter the cost; even though she saw the consequences to the last wish....
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...Your pencil drops on the floor. You decide to pick it up. Could this affect the rest of your life? The short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and the song “Tomorrow” by Sixx A.M. bot show that everything you do has consequences. In the beginning of the story, the narrator convinces readers that he isn’t sick. We then find out that he killed a man and started hearing the dead man’s heartbeat in his head which leads him to feel guilty. The speaker in the song talks about the listener’s future and the consequences it will have. The theme: Everything you do has consequences is shown through the symbol of the heartbeat in the short story and the repetition of the word “tomorrow” in the song. Although the theme is arrived in different ways in each sources, they have the same theme: Everything you do has consequences. At the end of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator talks about hearing the dead man’s heartbeat. Obviously he isn’t hearing an actual heartbeat, the heartbeat is a symbol for the guilt the narrator is feeling. Poe writes, “‘But why does his heart not stop beating?! Why does it not stop!?’”, this supports the theme because it shows that you cannot escape the consequences that your...
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...Tell-Tale Heart “TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” Upon reading the very first paragraph of the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, many, if not all, readers can imply that there is something peculiar about the narrator. If some readers were not convinced enough to believe that he is insane from this paragraph, the rest of the story certainly will prove his insanity. Throughout the tale, the narrator desperately tries to defend himself and prove that he is sane by telling...
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...misery, a sense of darkness, and a sense of pleasure from the relief of murder is shown in the beginning when Poe writes “The Tell-Tale Heart.” His work had been known for “nightmarish scenes, desolate wastes, and tragic passions” (Bloom 11).With this being said, Poe is representing those gothic qualities. In the statement, “it haunted me day and night” represents misery the man felt when he saw the old man’s eye (“The Tell-Tale Heart” 71). Another quality of his gothic style is distressed,“I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He has the eye of a vulture - pale blue eye, with a film over it” (“The Tell-Tale Heart” 71). Although the other eye of the old man was fine, he felt agony because of how one eye had “a film over it” (“The Tell-Tale Heart” 71). Another statement that is showing Poe’s sense of darkness in his work is, “When it fell upon me, my blood ran cold . . .” it represents the darkness the man felt when he came in contact with the eye in person and how he watched the old man in his sleep (“The Tell-Tale Heart” 71). He would see it everywhere he went and especially, when he would creep into the old man’s house. A sense of pleasure is what he felt when the thought of what a relief it would be when he murdered...
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... “The Tell-Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the protagonist, is faced with his biggest problem yet, himself. Within the story, he is faced with guilt, perhaps too much guilt for one to handle. The unknown narrator is seen as an insane individual through his constant paranoia, neurotic thoughts, and unstable actions. The mad man is clearly able to demonstrate his insanity with his constant paranoia towards the old man. Throughout the text, the narrator expresses his ongoing feelings of paranoia towards the evil eye. He believes the eye haunts his every waking hour, till he finally decides to rid himself from the eye once and for all, “I was never...
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...The heart is merely an organ which pumps blood throughout the body to sustain life; the soul, however, is hard to deceive. Both the term “heart” and “soul” can be used synonymously to mean the will of the person. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” the true will of the heart is shown in the Poe’s ability to effectively display the mental instability of the narrator and how one’s guilt can affect their conscience through the text. From the beginning of the story Poe states the mental state of the character in the first paragraph. “True – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been. And am; but will you say that I am mad?” (Poe 1589) the narrator states in the first sentence. He then goes on to say how he is not insane because...
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...something about that person which drove you to hate them and their disfigurement, and you want to harm them. Have you ever felt like taking a life, or the guilt that follows such a horrible act? The narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart” has felt all of these feelings. The narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart” is psychotic. He shows us his insecurity because he wants to kill the old man just because of his malformed eye. He thinks it is alright to kill the old man and because he believes he is right, he thinks killing the old man is a stable and rational thing to do. In the end, his mental illnesses drive him to his confession of this awful act. In the "Tell-Tale Heart", Edgar Allan Poe uses irony, imagery, and symbolism to describe how psychotic, frighteningly, and twisted mind this narrator really is. First, irony the narrator confesses how sane he is; he is exhibiting his insanity as he describes his actions and motives for the murder (Edgar, Poe). Secondly, irony in the story is that the narrator/murderer refers to how he loves the old man and quote, “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I kill him’’(Poe). Its irony that he loves the guy but he systematically plans to kill him. Lastly, an irony of this short story is that shortly after the narrator kills the old man and hides his heart underneath the Adams 2 ...
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...The Guilt In the tale, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe tells the story of how the narrator who was assumed to be mad for killing an old man. The old man has an eye like a vulture and the narrator said this old man’s eye is an evil eye; according to the story he said “one of his eyes resembled that of a vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (39). The story shows guilt and emotional breakdown, but sometimes feel emotional disturbance. The tone at the beginning of the story is eerie because the narrator is talking about an evil eye and then he goes on to say how he watches the old man late at night for hours, just looking at his eye, studying him, and not saying a word. At the beginning of the story, the narrator questions his sanity, saying "...why will you say I am man? (39)" For him to come out and say this statement, I feel everyone has seen him as an insane person, because people believe that it is impossible to kill your rich and wealthy master just because of his eyes; someone would have done that because of his wealth and riches, but his case was different, that is why they see him to be insane. This was what made him tell his story in a gentle approach. He was making his point to the person, telling him or her that he is not insane, and he knows what he is doing and would not have killed the old man the way he did if he was insane. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator tells of his torture. He was disturbed by the old man's Evil Eye. The narrator had no ill will...
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...A Psychologist studies the mental processes and behaviors of a person. What would a Psychologist think about the narrator in the story “The Tell-Tale Heart” trying to save someone from their own eye? Well most likely they would say that this person is mentally ill. A Psychologist would say that he is mentally ill because he had an obsession to save an old man from his own eye. The narrator had an obsession with the old man’s eye because he felt that the eye was evil and he needed to save the old man that he loved from the “vulture-eye” (evil eye) (Poe, 89). But by doing so, the narrator fails to see that by “saving” him he would actually kill him. Also, the narrator sees that the “vulture-eye” is completely separate from the old man’s physical...
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...翁良權 98121232 Introduction to English Literature, Wed 34 Professor:馬健君 Paper1: Essay for the Tell-Tale Heart(題目太籠統，不要學) Oct, 21, 2009 Essay for the Tell-Tale Heart(題目太籠統，不要學) This story is described from the murderer. He talks about the process how he killed the old man. The name of The Tell-Tale Heart gives the hint for what will happen next and the heart will do something startled. Using the name can make reader interested in knowing what the story will go. In the beginning, the murderer doesn’t think he has committed the crime. And he tries to convince reader to believe what he did is right. In the story, the author describes what the murderer feels in the whole story. His mood goes from excitement to confidence to guilt and to breaking down at length. The author uses precise sentences to describe those moods for example:“Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust head in.”,“I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph.”means the murderer at that time was really exciting;“I smiled,--for what had I to fear?”, “While 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. ”means the murderer was confident to what he did without any mistakes; “No doubt I now grew very pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice.”,“I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased.”means the murderer was guilty;“I felt that I must scream or die...
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...The Tell-Tale Heart In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator who later proves himself morbidly insane by committing a gruesome murder spends his entire story trying to convince an unknown audience that he is not mad. The unreliableness of this narrator shows up in the very beginning of his story. He begins speaking to an audience that is unknown. This is revealed in his first words, "True!---nervous---very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" In this first sentence alone the narrator discredits his reliability several times. First, it is unknown to who he is telling his story. The reader can only guess. It is unknown if he is speaking to a psychiatrist, a prison warden, or himself. The fact that his audience is unknown makes the narrator in this story unreliable. Secondly, he states his nervousness. It shows here that he is unstable and cannot be trusted. Finally, the best example of the narrator's unreliability is in his continuous attempts from his first words, and to the end of his story to convince that he is not a madman. It is seen over and over in the following statements, "Now this is the point. You fancy me as mad. Madmen know nothing. But, you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded---with what caution---with what foresight---with what dissimulation I went to work!" and, "And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?" His overbearing...
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...Killing someone, would you count it as insanity or not? The story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is about a person who is trying to kill the old man he works for over a series of days. The reason was the old man's eye. The old man ends up dying, but it didn't take long before the narrator confesses his actions from all his guilt built inside. For me that is insanity. One reason I have to prove the narrator's insanity is that he killed the old man because he couldn't stand his eye. Even though the old man was nice and kind to him. According to the passage, it says “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!”. The text also says “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever”....
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...feelings of guilt or insanity. American gothic literature is used to give the reader a thought of an evil presence inside of the story, to get the reader to assume that within all the happiness and good times, a demonic evil presence is still there waiting for its moment to make its grand appearance. There are three different types of American gothic literature: old American gothic literature, New American gothic literature, and southern American gothic literature. The story, “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, it talks about a man who is apparently talking to a raven as it wakes him up in the middle of the night. This is a prime example of American Gothic Literature because the story starts off as a man waking up from his sleep and hearing a knocking on his door, but as the story progresses, the demonic side of gothic literature begins to unravel itself. The raven in this story speaks to the man with one word,” nevermore”, but that one word was all it took for the man to go mad and talk back to the bird. In the story, “The Tell-Tale Heart” the man could not stand the old mad and his eye, so he kills the old man and rejoices when the deed is done. Later on in the story when policemen come to the house to check and see if everyone is alright, he is so confident that they won’t find the body or find out that he killed the old man in the first place, as the story continues he starts going insane with the guilt that is brewing inside of him to the point where he yells and tells the policemen...
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...Rachel Murray B. Sumey, Instructor Comp. II, TTH 3:00 18 Feb. 2012 Insanity In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is very insane and mentally ill. He is a murderer, does not sleep much, is very paranoid, and is unable to distinguish what is real and unreal. It is clear that Poe wants to create a character who is mad. First off, the narrator kills the old man. By doing so, he is considered a murderer. The death occurs “in an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him” (44). He is obviously not in his right mind to murder someone in such a manner. The narrator even claims to enjoy the event of murdering the old man. The narrator is crazy because he does not sleep much during the night. Instead of getting a good night’s rest, he takes the time to go and watch the old man sleep: “And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it – oh, so gently!” (42). Staying up every night affects his judgement because he does this for one whole week. “. . . that every night, just at twelve, I looked upon him while he slept” (43). The reason he stays up and watches the old man is so that he can be ready for anything that can possibly go wrong during his murder plan. The character sounds like he is hysterical. In the very beginning of the short story, this is evident by his saying, “True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous. . .” (42). The protagonist states that he can hear things that...
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