Essays on The Tell Tale Heart

1843, Edgar Allan Poe

Short story; Horror Fiction

The Narrator, The Old Man, the 3 Policemen, a neighbor

Inspired by the murder of Joseph White of Salem, Massachusetts.

Murder, horror, fear, criminal. The symbols also include The Eye, which represents an awareness, The Heart stands for intelligence, the Blue Eyes as the listener, and the House, which is the sense of guilt.

It is a classic horror story that tells about illustration, effective composition, and the power of the short story. It is also an example of confession and the state of madness. In a certain sense, it can be disputed regarding the sanity of the main protagonist, which even makes this short story even more influential.

The short story revolves around the man who wants to murder another person, yet strives for not getting caught or punished. It is the story of the perfect crime that fails. The killer in the story is never seen, yet only felt. It tells about the deranged border agent who wants to kill the landlord but not because of money or greed. It has a complex psychology dealing with the "evil eye", which also stands for the truth.

It is unclear whether the old man is the father figure since we do not know if he and the killer are related.
This short story is considered a classic example of the Gothic fiction genre.
The reason behind this story's popularity is a great hook when a man confesses about planning a murder.
The story has not been considered a success when it has been first published.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been particularly inspired by this story's writing style.
The Poe himself called his psychological torment style an "Arabesque".
The Tell-Tale heart also symbolizes the complex relationship between the guilt and innocence.

"It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night."
"Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what caution—with what foresight—with what dissimulation I went to work!"
"And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye."
"It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness—all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot."
"Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think."

It is the madness and the fear of punishment. The short story goes quite deep in terms of things that take place inside the criminal's mind, which is why it is a great analytical literary example. One can assume that we talk about disorganized schizophrenia, speaking of a mental disease.

Since it has been one of the most popular criminal stories to ever grace the literary works written in English, this short story can be used as the essay topic dealing with the guilt, innocence, planning something bad, finding punishment, and seeking attention. It can also be used as the allegory for prejudice and anger. It is read in high school and colleges because it also has a great composition and suspense structure.

The conclusion tells about complete insanity of the narrator as the description of the murder in detail is represented. The moral lesson is that one cannot hide from one's conscience.

1. Robinson, E. A. (1965). Poe's" The Tell-Tale Heart". Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 19(4), 369-378. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2932876)
2. Shen, D. (2008). Edgar Allan Poe's Aesthetic Theory, the Insanity Debate, and the Ethically Oriented Dynamics of “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Nineteenth-Century Literature, 63(3), 321-345. (https://online.ucpress.edu/ncl/article/63/3/321/67842/Edgar-Allan-Poe-s-Aesthetic-Theory-the-Insanity)
3. Pritchard, H. (2003). Poe's the Tell-Tale Heart. The Explicator, 61(3), 144-147. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00144940309597787?journalCode=vexp20)
4. Person, L. S. (2008). Queer Poe: The tell-tale heart of his fiction. Poe Studies, 41(1), 7-30. (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/509582/summary)
5. Toikkanen, J. (2017). Auditory Images in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart”. The Edgar Allan Poe Review, 18(1), 39-53. (https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/edgar-allan-poe/article-abstract/18/1/39/200624/Auditory-Images-in-Edgar-Allan-Poe-s-The-Tell-Tale)
6. Pitcher, E. W. (1979). The Physiognomical Meaning of Poe's" The Tell-Tale Heart". Studies in Short Fiction, 16(3), 231. (https://www.proquest.com/docview/1297934226?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true)
7. Bynum, P. M. (1989). Observe How Healthily—How Calmly I Can Tell You the Whole Story”: Moral Insanity and Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart. Literature and Science as Modes of Expression, 141-152. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-2297-6_8)
8. Alsahafi, M. (2020). A Narrative Discourse Analysis of Poe's Short Story" The Tell-Tale Heart": Implications for Language Teaching. English Language Teaching, 13(1), 1-17. (https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1239146)