analyse "the tell tale heart"

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I need an analysis of the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" written by Edgard Allan Poe. Please help me!!!! Thanks!

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

Answers

Toralv,

You may wish to try the Poe Decoder website for your analysis. You will find a well written summary of "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Ms. Martha Womack. while I don't personally agree with all her conclusions, it is insightful and thought provoking. You may find it useful and can find it at:

http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/ttheart/

Good luck.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000


I am 12 years old, and I resumed the story but not analysed. II Summary of the story

1) Structure AUTHOR: Edgard Allan Poe TITLE: Great Tales of Horror “The Tell-Tale Heart” PAGES: 6 pages EDITOR: David Sohn FIRST YEAR OF PUBLISHING: 1843

2) Summary

It’s the story of a namless narator who was obssessed by one of the old man’s eyes, with whom he lived. His eye ressembled that of a vulture, a pale blue eye with a film over it, so the narrator decided to thus rid himself of the eye for ever. In the story the narrator tries to prove us that he isn’t mad and tries to convince us of the fact by how carefully he arrived to this brutal crime that was planned and executed: Every night at midnight, the narrator went to the old man’s room so carefully, with caution and dissimulation, taking whith him a lantern to observe the eye. He always found the eye closed; and so it was impossible to do his work. It was not the old man that vexed him, but the “Evil eye”.The old man suspected nothing. During the day, the narrator continued to perform his usual duties, and even dared to ask each morning how the old man had passed the night. Upon the eight might, something was different: The old man heard noise and sprang up in bed crying out: “Who’s there?”. The narrator kept quiet, and did’nt move for an hour. The fear of the old man had been ever since growing upon him. And when the narrator openned a little crevice in the lantern, a single dim ray fell upon the vulture eye: it was wide open. For that moment, the narrator heard the beating of the old man’s heart, “such as a watch mke when it’s enveloped with coton. Suddenly, the narrator leaped into the room, and the old man shrieked once. The narrator dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him. In a short time the hideous heart beat stoped. The old man’s eye would never trouble the madman (narrator) again. Next came the concealment of the body. After he dissembled the corpse, he deposed the remains underneath the planks of the floor without keeping a mess or blood stains. At 4 A.M, by the time this “ghastly deed had been completed, three officers of police came to “make shure no foul play had occured” because a neighboor had reported hearing a shriek in the night. So the narrator feeling innocent, said that the shriek occured at night, while he was sleeping, and that the old man is absent in the coutry. Everything was in order in the house, so the narrator brought in chairs and insisted that the officers rest. He placed his own chair upon the planks wich reposed the corpse of the victim. They chatted at ease, and soon, the narrator began to hear a familliar sound, “such as a watch makes when enveloped with coton”. The sound steadilly increased, and the officiers made no notice. He was nervous, very nervous at the idea that the officiers suspected the deed. Finally, he shrieked: “Villans!”, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!-tear up the planks! here, here!-it’s the beating of his hideous heart!” Obviously, during the story, the beating he hears is his own heart: he isn’t conscious of feeling nervous, his body is exhibiting all the symptoms of terror and his mind is displacing them into the dead man.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2002


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