Example Body Paragraphs from A Tell Tale Heart
Topic Sentence Explain Story Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Concluding statement
The narrator’s absurd reaction to the old man’s eye clearly supports the theme don’t sweat the small stuff. The narrator is obsessed with the evil eye of his boss and can think of nothing else. The small eye, something that should really bother no one, slowly begins to drive the narrator mad. At the very start of the story Poe writes,
“Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold: and so by degrees – very gradually – I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever”
(Poe 379). Although the narrator does not come right out and say it, the audience can infer that the eye bothers him so much he is ready to kill the old man in order to get rid of it. This solution seems like a very drastic one. To kill a man simply because one does not like another’s eye is a perfect example of the narrator being bothered by a small detail. If the narrator had chosen to ignore this small feature of his boss, a murder would have never been committed.

Topic Sentence Explain Story Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Concluding statement
Thesis: One theme in “The Tell Tale Heart” is to not think one is too clever or arrogant.
The narrator’s arrogance can be seen when he flaunts the murder of his boss in the face of the police officers. After murdering his boss, chopping his body up, and depositing it in the floor boards of his chamber, the police arrive. They have been alerted by a neighbor that screams had been heard. After showing the police throughout the house Poe writes, “In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought the chairs into the room and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, 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” (Poe 383). At this point, the narrator is on top the world and feels everything has gone his way. By placing his chair over the dead body and then carrying on a conversation with the officers, he shows that he feels confident that he will get away with this murder. Unfortunately, this arrogance soon subsides as the narrator begins to panic, believing he hears the beating heart of his boss. Being so arrogant as to sit in the room with the dead body, ultimately results in his downfall. If he had chosen a different room to sit in, he would have never “heard” the beating heart and would have never turned himself in.