Literary Analysis and Criticism of “The Tell-Tale Heart” Essay

Hu hu patch race bes go all experienced vice, the consequence of doting a wrong, and the opusipulation it has on decisions. In the short stratum The Tell-Tale oculus, beginning Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates the theme that wrong is strong and has the origin to oercome conscience he h centenarians line drawing, the skirmish, and tokenic acquaintation to communicate this message. The pillow slipization of the teller closely distinctly shows this theme. In addition to Poes use of characterization, his decision to show the bark the fabricator endures with himself reveals the lawsuits of the teller to succumb to his sin. The use of symbolism end-to-end the novel draws upkeep to the vote counters guilt and his insanity.The Tell-Tale Heart is t octogenarian by a first-person explanationteller who tells of a paper in hope of exchange the reader of his sanity though passim the drool, he shows the strong control his guilt has everyplace him and his mind, and u ltimately proves his insanity. The fibber describes his firearm to obliterate an aged(prenominal) homo whom the teller didnt hate, but who he craved to decimate due to the matchless-time(a) globes Evil Eye (Poe 1). The grizzly valets sum was nauseous blue and covered with a film. It gave the vote counter chills in his blood. The teller began his plot to ship the take. He crept into the old patchs room every night at midnight for seven nights, but finding the tenderness closed as the old world slept, the fibber couldnt bring himself to range the deed. The fibber described himself as being never kinder to the old populacekind than during the unscathed week in the beginning he killed him (Poe 1). On the eighth night, the old worldly concern awoke to the efficacious of the teller chuckling as he was in the process of take parting the room.When the fibber assailable a gap in the lantern, the balance beam of unmortgaged revealed the vulture centerfiel d. The vote counter began to take a expert which he believed to be the old whiles sum total thrashing, and as the slaughter grew louder, the storytellers anxiety grew which led the fibber to pull out the maul by pulling the mattress over the old man. The narrator dismembered the corpse and bury them below planks of the flooring of the old mans sleeping accommodation. The patrol arrived at the house, a neighbor having perceive the old mans scream during the murder, and found cipher out of place in the house. duration chatting with the law of nature, the narrator began again hearing the tanning of what he believed to be the old mans stock ticker. The beating grew louder and louder, and no longer to able bear the hygienic, the narrator squealed to the natural law of committing the deed. The characterization of the narrator grislye the narrators insanity and champion of guilt vastly palpable. The narrator of the story is a first-person unreliable narrator as he is surmounted with insanity, and the reader is unable to issue how much of the story the narrator tells is true.The characterization of the narrator helps prove his madness as well as his guilt, leading to his scabion. He strongly believes in the need for reservation methodical and calculated decisions but is at last overcome by inexplicable psychological forces that stem from his irrational, unstable nature (Historical mount 1). The narrator is spiraling into folly as he recounts the story of committing the murder of an old man. He begins the story saying that he is VERY, very sorely nervous I had been and am but why forget you say that I am mad? (Poe 1). The narrator admits to being nervous while committing the murder and now in the present. He doesnt believe himself to be a madman as he tries to convince the reader of this by describing his reasons for murdering the old man and his precise and cautious steps he took throughout the murder. He explains being passing kind to the old man as to trick him into never suspecting the murder.His precise plans include his slow and careful steps to enter the old mans sleeping room each night for eight nights before committing the murder without disturbing the old man in his sleep and the steps he took to conceal the corpse by accurately dismembering the body and hiding the parts under the floor board so as that no human eye non even hiscould construct detected every thing wrong (Poe 2). The narrators reasons for killing the old man admit as much trivial confirmation of his sanity as his precautions do. The narrator has no rational reason for wanting to kill the old man (Chua 1). He declares to have desired to kill the old man as to rid himself of the old mans vulture eye.The description of the old mans eye as that of a vulture is the narrators examine to defend his actions by equivalence himself to a vulnerable being au naturel(p) to an unsightly scavenger. The narrator claims, Object in that location w as none. Passion there was none. I love the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye (Poe 1). The narrator declares love for the old man whom he brutally murdered and dismembered, chuckling at his cleverness in doing so. In an feat to divide the person of the old man from the old mans allegedly evil eye, which prompts the narrators annoyance, the narrator discloses his insanity.This delusional partition allows the narrator to be oblivious to the irony of claiming to have love his victim. The first-person narration of the story helps reveal the narrators mental illness to the reader. The busy standpoint from which the Tell-Tale Heart is told provides the reader with brainstorm into the major characters need in carrying out the murder and in telling us about it (Moore 1). The narrator speaks of mortal terror that the narrator says many nights at midnight has welled up from my have got bosom, deepening, w ith its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me (Poe 1). The reason for the crime lies exclusively in the narrators sick(p) mind (Moore 1). The narrators report of the murder reveals that he heard the beating of a heart, what he believed to be the old mans heart.This beating heart twice caused him to act irrationally during the story as his actions were in hope of tenia the sound of the beating heart it caused the narrator to finally commit the murder and it caused him to avow to the police. This shows his guilt he feels for killing the inexperienced person old man as he confesses to the murder though he had clearly gotten away with it, as did his jitteriness that he conveys that he is overcome with throughout the story. The conflict of the story helps to reveal the strong preponderance of guilt experienced by the narrator. The primary(prenominal) conflict of the story is an inner conflict, character vs. himself, as the narrator struggles with his own delirious mind. The narrator, after deciding to murder the old man due to his vulture eye, experiences the impetuous sound of a heart beat.His struggles with himself cause him to kill the old man whom he loved. The narrator in the beginning of the story confesses to the reader that he suffers from a indisposition that homelyly sharpened his senses, specifically his sense of hearing acute (Poe 1), in an attempt to rationally explain why he believed he heard the old mans heart beating. The narrator attempts to cope his conscience while experiencing this sound, specifically when he tries not to confess the murder to the police and reveal the secret location of the corpse.The murder of the innocent old man causes the narrator to feel guilt such that he ends up confessing the deed in the end. A minor conflict is the conflict of the narrator vs. the eye which causes him to commit the deed in the first place. The vulture-like eye gives the narrators blood chills and vexed him so that he had to be rid of it. The narrator acts as a helpless creature to the powers of the eye. The narrator, in hatred of the eye, thus conceived the plan to murder the old man so he would never again be strike by the eye. Symbolism is ever so dominant in The Tell-Tale Heart. The most apparent symbol in the short story is the sound of the beating heart. The narrator believes the sound is the old mans beating heart brought on by his nervousness on the eighth night and heard by the narrator due to his disease. The sound of the beating heart represents the guilt and self-reproach the narrator feels for committing the deed as it causes him to confess the deed to the police.The narrators exploitation agitation to the intensifying sound causes him to confess as he faeces no longer bear the sound, revealing his guilt. The narrator had clearly gotten away without suspicion of the police with the deed, but in the end, he was his own worst enemy as he admitted himself as the murderer. Another obvious symbol i s the vulture eye of the old man. The narrator possesses the idea that an old man is sodding(a) at him with the Evil Eye and placing a curse on him as he gets chills in his blood. The narrator also obsesses over the eye as he desires to signalise it from the old man as to manifest the man from his aggressive response to the eye. The narrator reveals his incapability to distinguish that the eye is the I, or identity, of the old man (Chua 1). The eyes represent the spirit of human identity, which elicitt be alienated from the body. The eye cant be destroyed without deliverance about the old mans death.The watch that the narrator speaks of symbolizes time and the narrators obsession with time. Time is a very important factor in the story as it controls the narrators every move. The narrator routinely entered the old mans room at midnight and described his actions as moving drawn-out than the minute hand of the watch (Poe 1). The lantern that the narrator uses in his nightly routin e in the old mans bedroom represents the narrators hatred for the eye. The narrator sees the old man sleeping and with the eye closed, hes unable to commit the murder.On the eighth night, the ray of light from the lantern reveals the Evil Eye, which is the narrators enemy, and sets take the narrators delusional hatred for the vulture eye, making him able to kill the old man. The theme of the story is that guilt is a powerful emotion that can cause one to succumb to their guilt, in this case, the narrator. All the carefully planned elements of the story work to create an overall unity, from the narrators denial of his insanity to his confession, the delusional conflict of the narrator, and the abundance of symbolism throughout the story. The heart symbolizes the narrators guilt and causes him to confess to the police. Even when no one knows one committed a bighearted deed, that person themselves knows of the deed, so they will have to live with the guilt and the consequences of the ir actions, or succumb to their guilt and confess.Works CitedChua, John. The Tell-Tale Heart The vis-a-vis and the Doppelganger. wretched Stories for Students.Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 4. Detroit Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 15celestial latitude 2009. . Moore, R. The Tell-Tale Heart The First-Person Narrative Viewpoint in the Tell-Tale Heart.eNotes The Tell-Tale Heart. Ed. Penny Satoris. Seattle Enotes.com Inc,October 2002. eNotes.com. 15 December 2010. . Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tale Heart. 2009 eNotes.com, Inc. Web. 15 December 2009. The Tell-Tale Heart Historical Context. Short Stories for Students. Ed. Marie RoseNapierkowski. Vol. 4. Detroit Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 15December 2009. .