Rashadah Jordan
January 29, 2013
English 102
R. Shelley
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell- Tale Heart” In “The Tell-Tale Heart” author Edgar Allen Poe uses what we would probably call a servant as the narrator, but as always there is some kind of twist. The servant in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is mental disturbed. He tells the detailed story of how he murdered the old man he was staying with because of a cataract he had in one of his eyes that made him feel uncomfortable. But yet he feels like he is sane just because of the idea that he can calmly admit to the murder he has committed. Therefore, it is made clearly to the readers that the servant is a complete psycho. Likewise, the servant’s point of view contributes a lot of emotion to the story. As readers read through the story the narrator gives a lot of detail to make the story pop off the pages. For example, “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night” (Poe 450). How the narrator uses the word “haunted” in the sentence makes you in some way feel like whatever the “idea” was it has to be something serious. Even before that statement the narrator started off the book with lots of excitement and emotion. “True!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am …” (Poe 450). Also the quote: “Passion there was none. I loved 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! Yes, it was this!” (Poe 450), you can see, if you haven’t already, that the guy is a psycho over the appearance of an eyeball. “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture- a pale eye, with a film over it” (Poe 450). The narrator uses a lot of detail and emotional references to get across how he was feeling at the time and to make you pain the picture in your mind. Meanwhile, Poe creates the feeling of suspense in the story by the setting in the house. He made the house feel isolated, as if nobody ever comes there. Poe made it feel as if nobody else lived in the house either, just the old man and the servant. “And this I did for seven long nights – every night just at midnight- but I found the eye always closed…..” (Poe 450). Drawing a conclusion from the sentence that there was nobody else around to witness or try to help the whole man for basically a week and a day. There is definitely horror tension/ suspense in the story when the narrator started explaining in detail even more on the night of the murder. “Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautions in opening the door. A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly that did mine” (Poe 450). When the narrator made that statement the mood of the story went from weird to just plain disturbed. It just surprises the audience about how much caution the narrator put into to watching the old man for so long. Then the narrator has no other motivation for taking the old man’s life but for his eye. Referring back to “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, thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 450). The suspense increases when the narrator stated, “I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled” (Poe 450). As the audience keeps reading Poe uses the old man to keep the suspense going. “I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out – “Who’s there?” “(Poe 451). Seeing the extreme measures the narrator is going through to kill this old man contributes even more as it leads up to his death. The narrator takes even more extreme measures “I kept quiet and still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down” (Poe 451). The way Poe uses dramatic irony with the audience, being that everything is already from the