In The Name Of God The Compassionate The Merciful
A general overview of the story:
The aim of this essay is to have a detailed study in different elements of short
story in The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. Therefore I start talking about the
name of the story. Tale-tell heart shows that the story has something to do with
heart and maybe a mystery or secret which will be revealed by this heart. Of
course we have no idea what is going on in the story so we go through the story to
find out more information about tell-tale heart.
The story begins by the speaker talking about his nervousness. He claims that he
is nervous and that is definitely true but he tries to substantiate that he is not crazy.
In the first lines of the story the narrator talks about a kind of disease that
sharpened his senses but he persists he is okay although he suffers from that
disease, he is not mad. By a quick look in the first paragraph of this story we can
figure it out that something is going to be wrong in this story. If a person is fine,it
will be pointless to mention that. Why should a normal person try to prove he or
she is okay. Still we don't have enough clues to see what is wrong with that person
so we need to continue studying the story.
Now we find out that the narrator has got a problem which is the old man’s eye
that is like a vulture eye. The narrator continues telling the impact and influences
that the old man’s eye had on him and he explains how painful this experience is
which leads to a murder scheme. Now the narrator wants to confirm his claim that
he is not crazy by telling how this murder had taken place. He says he has no
desire for the old man’s money nor his golds he even says he loves the old man
because he is a kind man who has never insulted him but his eye forced him to
commit the crime. He says he has gone to the old man’s bedroom for seven night
but each time his eye-that blue pale eye which was called as vulture eye-was
closed so he can not kill him since the old man is not the problem but the eye is
doomed to death. This is for the eighth night that he is standing for a long period of
time watching the old man lied down on the bed.
Reading this part of the story, we find that the narrator has some kind of mental
problem because he wants to kill a person just for his eye. Is it the only way to get
rid of the old man’s eye? In addition to this fact, is talking about a violent crime and
killing a person a suitable way to prove one is not mad? So there must be
something wrong with the narrator, maybe a mental disease. Of course it is crystal
clear that he is not mad. As he says a mad man can’t do the same thing he did.
The narrator describes the crime on the eighth night and he says he did the same
thing the previous times but this time he made a noise and this wake up the old
man. He one more time sees the old man’s eye and and he feels a coldness in his
body but he stay still for an hour. He sees the man is terrified and he enjoys
watching the scene. He also thinks about triumph and he thinks that the old man is
scared to death. As in the beginning of the story mentioned the narrator’s disease
had sharpened his senses and here he hears the old man’s heart beat. Now the
narrator feels that neighbors may hear the heartbeat. He decides to do what he
has been waiting for. After he suffocates the old man by pulling his bed on him, he
still hears the old man’s heart beat. He cuts off his legs, his head and his arms.he
puts them under the planks in the bedroom.
By his actions and the violence that he put into his behavior, the claim that he
suffers from a mental disease is strengthened.
After the crime is committed the door bell rings and the narrator now very
comfortable and self confident opens the door. He sees three men introduce
themselves as police and they explain one of the neighbors call the police and he
heard a scream from this house. He invites them in and guides them to different
part of the house and at the end he shows them the old man’s bedroom. They sat
down there and chatted with each other. Meanwhile he hears a strange sound.
Although he speaks louder to get rid of the sound, it is not enough. He thinks that
is the sound of the old man’s heart which is betraying the narrator and is telling
who has done the crime. He finally can not tolerate and admits he had killed the
old man.
Again at the end of the story we understand that he has some mental problems
because a dead body do not have any heart beat and what he was hearing was
only the figment made by his mind. None of the officers understand anything
about the crime but he has conflicts with himself which I will talk more about it.
This was a general overview of the story and I will talk more about elements of
short story.
Setting
The story starts by a person talking but we don’t know exactly where he is. Having
a careful look in the story, we can get that the whole story is in a big house. The
house should be in an urban area because after the narrator kills the old man, he
even does not have time to rest and immediately the officers come. We can infer
that the city is in a place that the crime rate is somehow high. The main part of the
story happens in the bedroom where the old man used to sleep.
Characters
The actors in the story are:1- the narrator 2- the old man 3- the three police
officers and 4-the neighbor.
1-The narrator:
First and foremost we will have a quick look in the narrator character. This
character is the protagonist of the story and he suffers from a disease which has
sharpened his senses. The narrator is anonymous and we even do not weather it
is he or she and he just start telling the story. The story actually is from his point of
view-which we will talk more about it in the point of view part-and he describe the
very moment of the crime. This character is a representative of people who have
the same problem. In our everyday life we can see people who have problems
with people around them, they even do not no why this hatred exists in them but
they think the only way to get rid of them is destroying that person weather by
killing them or doing some thing that makes them leave their place. As we can see
it pains the narrator to see old man’s eye and though it is not a good reason, he
decides to commit the crime. It is also noticeable that he is a very wise person
since he has a very careful plan and he is very patient to have a good opportunity
to kill the old man.
2-The old man
The old man is the antagonist of this story. We do not have much information
about the old man just the things the narrator has told about him. He is a kind
person who has never insulted the narrator and he is very old since he can not
defend himself not to be killed by the narrator. One of his eyes is not normal and it
resembled to a vulture eye. It is pale blue with a film over it. The old man must be
an ignorant person as we can find the narrator telling the murder plan and that he
has watched the old man in his bedroom but he did not understand his presence
there. We do not have much more information about this character so we are to
finish talking about him.
3-The three police officers
Police officers can be considered as flat characters since their actions are exactly
predictable and we can see they are doing the things each police officer will do in
the same situation. Although they do not have a very important role in the story
but they help to find more about the character of the narrator. Here we have to
mention that the narrator has a sly and cunning personality since he has a very
good behavior with the old man during the week he had decided to kill the old man.
He acted in a way that the old man never thinks of bad intention by the narrator. At
the end the narrator insults the police officers and accuse them of of dissembling.
The officers are clever and intelligent not to live the house immediately after they
have searched the house and they talked to the narrator to see weather he is right
or not.
4- The neighbor
The neighbor that calls the police must be exactly contrary to the old man. Though
he is not that much important in the story, we can infer that he is very alert of the
incidents happened around him. Is it really a simple scream that makes him call
the police? Definitely not, we can say that the neighbor has got something about
the relationship between the old man and the narrator and his hatred of the old
man. In general people will not be awake at 4 o'clock-the time that the crime has
been committed-and why should this neighbor be awake in that time so we get to
know that he was aware of the narrator’s intention for killing the old man otherwise
he should not be awake in that time of the night and of course a simple scream
can not be a good reason for waking someone up.
Atmosphere
We can find the mystery all through the story and this mystery starts by the
narrator talking about the sinister eye of the old man. It is also a horror story that
ends to a manslaughter. The scene that the narrator cuts off the old man’s body
can be the most horrible part of the story. The atmosphere of a story usually is
created at the start of the story.
Conflict
The protagonist has conflicts with different people in the story. The first and the
most important one is his conflict with the old man. He suffers from looking at
the old man’s eye. The conflict leads to his decision for killing the old man. The
protagonist of this story-the narrator-has also conflict with himself. We can see
that when the police officers are talking with him he hears the heart beat of the old
man. But this is not a real one, this is his imagination and he tries to soothe
himself but he is not completely successful.
Theme
The theme of the story is that sometimes one little burden can bring big
consequences. For example the narrator in this story was annoyed by the old
man’s eye which caused him to commit murder. This is the main theme that is
conspicuous through the story and we can see that the narrator repeatedly talking
about the old man’s eye as a troublesome matter. We can observe the same thing
in real world. So many people are dealing with the very small problems
considering them as insolvable problems and do stupid reactions that just
aggravate the situation and have big consequences.
Point of view
The point of view of this story is first person as we see that the narrator is talking
about his story with the old man. In some parts of the story the narrator is trying to
show that his point of view is also omniscient and we can find it when he is behind
the door of the old man and spying on him, here the old man feels someone’s
presence in his bedroom and he says who is there. Here the narrator says that I
know he is terrified and he calms he knows what the old man is thinking, as we
can find it in these lines:” he had been saying to himself it is nothing but the wind
in the chimney-it is only a mouse crossing the floor or it is merely a cricket which
has made a single chirp. Yes he had been trying to comfort himself with these
suppositions; but he had found all in vain.”. This is not usually for the first point of
view to go through the character’s mind. The narrator is not reliable since he is
hypocrite. He had deceived the old man and achieved his trust but he killed him at
the end so it is expected that he is not telling the true story.
Motive
About the motive of this character we can say that it is not just the old man’s eye
that resents the narrator but this eye has some kind of symbolic meaning beyond
it’s surface. The eye is likened to a vulture eye. This is an important point, why is it
like a vulture eye? The answer is that vulture is a bird that is fed by the dead body
of animals and totally the corpse. So we can say the narrator is already dead and
he tries to change this situation by doing what the old man has done to him. There
is also some specific feature about this eye that is significant in this story. The eye
is not a normal eye and it is totally different from other people’s eye. For instance
we have a part in the story which shows how unique this eye is. After that the
narrator kills the old man he hides the corpse under planks in old man’s bedroom
and he says:” I then replace the boards so cleverly, so cunningly,that no human
eye--not even his--could have detected anything wrong.” This line shows how
significant the eye is. If no human eye can detect where the corpse is buried how
his eye can find it ,So this eye must be more than an eye.
Some elements can be seen in the story that we are going to them:
1-Trust
This is an element which is outstanding in the story. We can see that the old man
trusted to the narrator because he-as we can find in the story-has a good security
in his windows and this is safe and sound. But the old man does not lock the door
and this helps the narrator to spy on him seven night. Therefore we get that the
old man has trusted to the narrator.
2-dissemulation
We can see that the the narrator says how good behavior he has a week before
killing the old man. He explains the way he treats the old man and how helpful he
is but is that really from bottom of his heart? No never, he did all that to achieve
the old man’s trust. Isn't this the things people usually do to achieve their
purpose?
Resolution of story:
the narrator kept hearing heartbeats (the old
man’s or his, in his guilt) and
confessed to the crime.The conflict of the story is that the old man’s eye bothers
the main character so much that he wants to get rid of it.
In the end, he gets rid of the eye by killing the old man but the main character can
still hear the old man’s heartbeat.
Climax:
The climax of the story is when the narrator kills the old man.
In this essay I tried and did my best to give a comprehensive analysis of the
Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. All the subjects that have just been discussed
are my perception of this story and I wish I could do this perfectly. By the way I
hope you would enjoy reading this essay.
Thanks for your time and consideration .
Mojtaba Mohammadi
Course: short story
English literature B.A
1394-1395. (Spring 2016)