Tell Tale Heart
By Edgar Allan Poe
Reading Guide Questions
1. How does the first sentence create suspense?
2. Poe talks about TIME throughout the story:
• Find three quotations to do with TIME going slowly in the story.
• Find two quotations to do with TIME going fast within the
story.
3. Repetition:
Poe repeats words a great deal in the story i.e. "Very, very
slowly".
Write down 3 examples of repetition and explain why Poe
repeats words and phrases.
Reading Guide Questions
4. Descriptive Language: Poe describes everything in great detail so
that the reader can imagine the story like a film. He uses lots of
imagery.
• List some of the evil words that he uses: what effect do they have
in the story and on the reader?
• How does he make the "eye" sound disgusting?
• How does he make the death sound disgusting?
5. The story is written in first person narrative by the main character.
• List 3 quotations where the main character directly refers to the
reader. Why does Poe do this?
• Why does Poe have the murderer tell the story?
Reading Guide Questions
6. Find examples of the following literary devices
in The Tell Tale Heart:
a. Simile-a comparison using “like or as.”
b. personification-giving human characteristics
or actions to something that is NOT human.
c. alliteration – consonant sounds that repeat
themselves in a line of prose or poetry.
•
d. Irony - is the contrast between what is
expected or what appears to be and what
actually is.
Literary Devices
•
Personificaton : Example – “Death in approaching him had stalked with his
black shadow before him and enveloped the victim.” [Here, Death is a
person.]
•
Simile : Examples –”So I opened it–you cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthily–until 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.
“It increased 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.
Example - “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.”
•