narrators
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First person omniscient narrator
Seems to be adult telling the story of himself
once young or coming of age.
For westerners, Arabs are exotic, and thus
represent the orient with its magic and
bizarreness.
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The nameless narrator of the story talks about life on
North Richmond Street. The former tenant of their
apartment was a priest who died. Some books have
been left behind, and the young boy narrator
sometimes looks at them. He is raised by his aunt and
uncle. One of his playmates is a boy named Mangan,
and the narrator develops a crush on his friend
Mangan's sister. Mangan and his sister live in a
building across the street. The narrator watches her
stealthily, waiting for her to leave in the mornings so
that he can follow her on part of his way to school.
One day, the girl finally speaks to him, to ask if he will go
to Araby. Araby is the name of an upcoming bazaar with
an Arabian theme. She can't go, because she is going on a
religious retreat that weekend. The narrator, full of
romantic notions, says that he will go and find some kind
of gift for her.
 The boy can think of little but the girl, the Orientalist
bazaar, and the gift he will get for her. He gets permission
to go, and for days he cannot concentrate. The day finally
arrives, and the boy reminds his uncle that he wishes to go
to the bazaar that night. His uncle will have to get home
on time to give him the money for a ride to the bazaar, as
well as a bit of spending money.
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That night, his uncle is late. The boy despairs of being
able to go at all, but finally his uncle comes home. His
uncle has forgotten about the bazaar, and by now it is
quite late. But the boy still wants to go, and he takes
the small sum of money for the train and heads off.
 He arrives at the bazaar just as it is closing. Only a few
stalls are open. He examines the goods, but they are
far too expensive for him. The lights are being shut
off, and the narrator despairs: "Gazing up into the
darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided
by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and
anger."
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First person unreliable (mad)
Especially to take a journey inside the mind of
some insane character.
The effect and point of view is clear in this
technique
Poe fond of horror themes
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The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative of an
unnamed narrator[1] who insists he is sane but suffering
from a disease which causes "over-acuteness of the
senses". The old man with whom he lives has a clouded,
pale, blue "vulture-like" eye which so distresses the
narrator that he plots to murder the old man, though the
narrator states that he loves the old man, and hates only
the eye. The narrator insists that his careful precision in
committing the murder shows that he cannot possibly be
insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of
the old man's room, a process which takes him a full hour.
However, the old man's vulture eye is always closed,
making it impossible to "do the work".
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On the eighth night, the old man awakens and sits up in his own bed
while the narrator performs his nightly ritual. The narrator does not draw
back and, after some time, decides to open his lantern. A single ray of
light shines out and lands precisely on the old man's eye, revealing that it
is wide open. Hearing the old man's heart beating unusually and
dangerously quick from terror, the narrator decides to strike, jumping out
with a loud yell and smothering the old man with his own bed. The
narrator dismembers the body and conceals the pieces under the
floorboards, making certain to hide all signs of the crime. Even so, the
old man's scream during the night causes a neighbor to report to the
police. The narrator invites the three arriving officers in to look around.
He claims that the screams heard were his own in a nightmare and that
the man is absent in the country. Confident that they will not find any
evidence of the murder, the narrator brings chairs for them and they sit
in the old man's room, right on the very spot where the body is
concealed, yet they suspect nothing, as the narrator has a pleasant and
easy manner about him.
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The narrator, however, begins to hear a faint
noise. As the noise grows louder, the narrator
comes to the conclusion that it is the heartbeat
of the old man coming from under the
floorboards. The sound increases steadily,
though the officers seem to pay no attention to
it. Shocked by the constant beating of the heart
and a feeling that not only are the officers aware
of the sound, but that they also suspect him, the
narrator confesses to killing the old man and
tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal
the body.