Edgar Allan Poe has made the narrators’ in “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado” evidently obsessed through out the story in wanting control of others. In “The Tell Tale Heart” the narrator was not obsessed with the old man, but more so “he had the eye of a vulture a pale blue eye, with a film over it” which he despised. There is a similarity between the two characters - one disliking the eye and the other disliking the person. “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” Otherwise controlled, obsession is a sickness that takes over an individual that could eminently lead to compulsion, which ends up being a game.
The codes and conventions for “The Tell Tale Heart” would be symbolism and foreshadowing. Symbolism was used in Poe’s story when depicting the narrator killing the old man and how he faintly heard his heart beating a little faster after the act. The symbolism clearly lets the reader appreciate the anxiety that the narrator was experiencing after the killing act especially when the policeman confronted him; the narrator thought that the heart beat sounded that of the old man heart and felt guilty for killing him and turned himself in. He tried to ignore it, “but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased.” This symbolizes the old mans heart. Another major code and convention was foreshadowing. The narrator had premeditated the old man’s killing. His intention was to kill the old man a couple of days later by suffocating him with the bed cover while sleeping. “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.”… Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door.” The story of “The tell tale heart” written in the