The Tell-Tale HeartCharacters
Edgar Allan Poe
The Narrator…
• What do we know about him/her?
• Why do we call the Narrator a him?
WE know...
• He is a “dreadfully nervous” wreck as the story begins.
• At this point do we feel sorry for him?
• Even as the story begins he seems paranoid and mentally ill.
• He seems to be isolated in the world.
• We learn that he suffers from some form of insomnia and that
he is a murderer.
• -Do you think that the reason the audience is left in the dark,
with regards to his identity, is because he is a murderer?
• To find any details about him we are forced to read deeply
into what he says- to read between the lines.
Reading between those lines…
• There is only one word in the entire story that we could base
an argument for our narrator being a male upon. Can you find
it?
• Are there other reasons we make this assumption?
• “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing”
• This is the closest we can get to evidence that our narrator is
male. So what is it that makes us assume that he is a he?
Actions? Characterisation?
Why not leave?
• This is a question we have asked our selves a number of times
in class, from the little evidence we are given in the text we
can only assume that it would be difficult to leave the Old
Man and that, in the narrator’s eyes at least, the only way to
escape the eye.
• However, even under these circumstances, the narrator seems
abnormal and, to some of us, frightening because he seems to
enjoy his stalking behaviour, spying on the Old Man for seven
nights prior to the murder.
• “I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there
I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of
my secret deeds and thoughts.”
• The process through which he stalks the eye seems so very strange
and creepy. The narrator seems to take a lot of pleasure in it. It all
seems very perverse.
• But what does that mean? Use a dictionary and find a meaningyou may be surprised.
The Mysterious Illness…
• If you to one of those ‘what is wrong with me’ self-diagnosis
medical sites and type in ‘hyper sensitive hearing’ you will get the
following diagnosis: Tinnitus.
• Tinnitus is an auditory condition that can be caused by a number of
things including: tumours, sinus infection, loud noises and
misaligned jaw joints or muscles. The result is that those suffering
from the illness can have auditory hallucinations, sensitivity to
sound and possibly amplified hearing… sound familiar?
The Sothern Gothic Tradition
• Poe has often been labelled a ‘Southern Gothic writer’
meaning he was a writer whose work dealt with issues and
anxieties over slavery in the Southern states.
• Does Tell-Tale Heart belong to this category?
• Could the narrator be a slave and the old man his owner?
• The details that we are given about the old man are few but
what we do know is that he has a blue eye. While blue eyes
are not exclusively caucasian the majority are- so on this
assumption we could assume that the old man is white.
• (Note that the reference to the colour of the old man’s eye is
the only reference to colour in the story.)
• If we conclude that the old man was in fact a slave owner then
perhaps the reason our narrator dislikes it so much is that it looks
upon him as a possession.
• This interpretation may also explain why the narrator is nervous- he
has probably been mistreated his whole life. It may also explain
why he is so excited about his violation of the old man’s privacy.
• We will never know for sure if this is Poe’s intention but if the
narrating character were a slave would it change your perception of
him?
The OLD MAN
• If it is possible, the old man is even more mysterious than the
narrator- partly because we only see him through the lens of
our narrator.
• But, we do know that the old man has money as the narrator
seems to take pleasure in showing of his treasures to the
three Police officers.
• We know he has blue eyes, one of which now has a cataract.
• We know he is old.
• We know he usually sleeps fairly soundly.
Trusting?
• Our narrator believes that the old man knows nothing of his
night-time activities in the week before his death. He does
continue to leave his bedroom door unlocked so we can
assume he trusted the narrator.
• However, we know the old man is not usually so trusting as he
seems to fear robbers or similar.
Mad??
• BY our definition no BUT consider the narrator’s- he describes
madmen as 1. knowing nothing and 2. having impaired senses.
• We can assume that the old man does have dulled senses as
he does not hear the narrator’s visits until the eighth night.
He seems incapable of defending himself.
• This does suggest that the old man maybe senile and
therefore dependent on the care of the narrator.
Alienated/isolated…
• Someone outside the house seems to have been suspicious about
what was going on inside the house as the police are quickly called
after a scream is heard. There suspicions must also have been
creditable as not one or two but three police are sent to investigate.
So who was the mysterious neighbour suspicious of?
• The old man is an alienated figure within and outside of the home
and therefore we could see his murder as symbolic of something
much larger- of prejudices and abuse that arise out of physical
differences.