Edgar Allan Poe’s Use of Literary Techniques in The Tell-tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Tell-Tale Heart, presents an unsettling mediation on individual hubris through the Narrator’s moral ambiguity and inability to perceive the horror within his own “hideous heart”. As Poe strips the harrowing tale of extraneous details, his use of dramatic irony facilitates an observation of the impermanence of sanity and the inner conflict that permeates the subconscious self, rendering individuals complicit within a tumultuous existence.

Poe’s often haphazard, offhand syntax acts as an embodiment of the narrator’s precarious sanity, ironically depicted to the reader whilst the narrator remains dismissively unaware. In the opening, the Narrator’s rhetorical interrogative “why will you say that I am mad?” succeeding his declaration of being “very, very dreadfully nervous” establishes the narrator’s inner turmoil and psychological contradictions, declaring he is extremely uncomfortable yet insistent upon being perceived as sane as Poe encourages the reader to recognise the narrator’s erratic state before the tale has been told. Likewise, the repetition of the exclamative in declarations, “I went to work!”, “oh, so gently!” physically connotes a frenzied sense of excitement and maddened pride as the narrator attempts to align his sanity with the meticulous and enthusiastic detail in which the story is told, yet cannot understand that the content of such horrific revelations betrays the exposition of sanity he vehemently tries to establish. Further, as the narrator becomes maddened in the presence of the police officers, the short, jarring declaratives “I foamed-I raved- I swore!” “Almighty God!” “Hark! Louder, louder, louder!” disintegrates the former calm, collected retelling of the story, physically depicting the speaker’s degradation into madness, guilt and tumultuous inner conflict. Through this dramatic irony, Poe suspends the narrator in a depiction of ambiguous sanity and frenzied capacity, suggesting his astute retelling is merely the beginning of the descent into the hell of his own psyche, that of which he cannot recognise himself.

In conjunction with this notion, Poe ironically fills his Narrator’s perceptions with distorted features to establish a clear dichotomy between recognisable sanity and the story teller’s madness. Although the narrator attempts to divulge that the old man’s “Evil Eye” prompted his heinous act, he earlier contradicted that “object there was none, passion there was none” suggesting that he manufactured a motive in a futile attempt to justify his immoral actions and further construct a faulty depiction of psychological stability. Through the alliterative reference to the “Evil Eye”, the proper noun, titular connotations of this exaggeration attempt to associate the eye with great danger and as an entirely separate being from the man, therefore alleviating the burden of guilt one would associate with murder. However, the narrator fails to understand that the Old Man’s eye is a facet of his own identity that cannot be perversely dismembered from his being, thus eluding to the instability of the narrator’s thought process and rationality. Likewise, the comical “beating of the old man’s heart” described as “increasing the narrator’s fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage” absurdly portrays the narrator’s insidious desire as a courageous motivator, aligning murder with the valiant effort of a soldier charged with protecting himself and others despite the threat of the Eye existing only within the Narrator’s maddened mind. Through this use of dramatic irony, Poe depicts the nonsensical delusions of the Narrator, leaving him incapable of separating reality from madness.

Poe further uses dramatic irony to depict the overall lack of self -awareness the speaker possesses. When witnessing the “mortal terror” of the defenceless old man, the narrator declares that he “pitied him, although…chuckled at heart” subtly eluding to the titular ‘heart’ which betrays his intentions and reprehensible desires. This sinister amusement towards terror depicts a ‘tell-tale’ indifference towards the old man’s fear as Poe portrays the Narrator’s corrosive morality and questionable reactions that differ greatly from common standards. Similarly, Poe’s use of dramatic irony in the declaration that “The old man’s eye would trouble [the narrator] no more” portrays the narrator’s egocentric perspective as his comfort outweighs the tragedy of ending a man’s life as he again fails to recognise the ironic fusion of his mentally acute, precise form of storytelling and the offhanded carelessness undermining his sanity. Further, the narrator’s frenzied proclamation of the police officers as “Villains!” with “hypocritical smiles” depicts an inability to distinguish between the righteous morality of the officer’s and his immoral torment as he projects his villainous existence onto those who would expose him as Poe ironically portrays the insane degradation of the Narrator’s world view and perception of all external forces as threatening to his being.

Ultimately, it is through the subtle mannerisms and conceited nonchalance of the Narrator that Poe depicts the inner conflict between madness and morality at the core of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’. Poe’s use of dramatic irony reveals the true intentions of the Narrator, suggesting that individuals are often unaware of the ‘dreadful echo’ their reprehensible actions emanate and the unrelenting fragility of sanity itself.