The story I chose for the short story analysis is The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan
Poe, published in January of 1843. The setting of this story is the old house that both the
narrator and the old man supposedly live in. There are two main characters being the
narrator and the old man, but there are also some background characters like the neighbor
and the three policemen that came knocking on the narrator’s door. The plot of this story is
where the narrator and the old man have a good relationship with each other and as said in
Poe’s story “I loved the old man” (Poe) but he had gotten to a point where he had the idea to
kill the old man. So, with his idea he ended up getting to the point of murdering the old
man. And after he did, he had so much guilt that he ended up hearing of what he thought
was the old man’s heart, and in the end, he confessed to murdering the old man.
For this short story I think that Edgar Allan Poe had a lot of different meanings for the
things that the narrator did in the story. Right in the beginning of the story, the narrator is
stating that “The disease had sharpened my senses…” (Poe) but in my eyes it seems like he
had started to develop some type of mental disorder that would make him hear and see
things that were not there. He really liked the old man but with his senses being enhanced
he saw something in the old man that he never saw before. He had this thought that the eye
is what was making him have the crazy idea of killing the old man. So, he wanted to go
through with killing the old man. I think that the narrator thought that if he murdered the old
man he would have peace with knowing he would not have to see his “pale blue eye” (Poe)
But according to this article “Since we know hardly anything about the madman himself,
we are forced to ask why the author chose precisely this object on which to fix the rage in
the character of his creation” (Tucker), I think a reason that Poe decided to have the
narrator fixate on the old mans eye was because he had no actual reason to not like the old
man, so in his mind he made something up that was physically always able to be seen.
Furthermore, night by night the narrator would slowly get closer to killing the old
man and as the nights go on, he is hearing what the narrator thinks to be the old mans heart
beating louder and louder because he thought it was the old man fearing what is going on
during the night. In my thoughts I think that he is hearing his own heart being growing louder
because he is having anxious thoughts about killing the old man in a way that would never
be found out by anyone. Moving on to the point where he murdered the old man, the
heartbeat noise had grown so loud that he thought his neighbor might hear, so he decided
that, that night had to be the night. He went through with his plan to murder the old man, he
then carefully divided his body up, and after that, takes up some pieces of the floorboards
and meticulously puts his body parts underneath so that the crime would never be found
out, and then returns the floorboards to their exact place. After the deed was done, three
police officers showed up at his door because the neighbor said that they heard a shriek
from inside. The narrator invited them in because he had “nothing to hide” as the police
Poe, published in January of 1843. The setting of this story is the old house that both the
narrator and the old man supposedly live in. There are two main characters being the
narrator and the old man, but there are also some background characters like the neighbor
and the three policemen that came knocking on the narrator’s door. The plot of this story is
where the narrator and the old man have a good relationship with each other and as said in
Poe’s story “I loved the old man” (Poe) but he had gotten to a point where he had the idea to
kill the old man. So, with his idea he ended up getting to the point of murdering the old
man. And after he did, he had so much guilt that he ended up hearing of what he thought
was the old man’s heart, and in the end, he confessed to murdering the old man.
For this short story I think that Edgar Allan Poe had a lot of different meanings for the
things that the narrator did in the story. Right in the beginning of the story, the narrator is
stating that “The disease had sharpened my senses…” (Poe) but in my eyes it seems like he
had started to develop some type of mental disorder that would make him hear and see
things that were not there. He really liked the old man but with his senses being enhanced
he saw something in the old man that he never saw before. He had this thought that the eye
is what was making him have the crazy idea of killing the old man. So, he wanted to go
through with killing the old man. I think that the narrator thought that if he murdered the old
man he would have peace with knowing he would not have to see his “pale blue eye” (Poe)
But according to this article “Since we know hardly anything about the madman himself,
we are forced to ask why the author chose precisely this object on which to fix the rage in
the character of his creation” (Tucker), I think a reason that Poe decided to have the
narrator fixate on the old mans eye was because he had no actual reason to not like the old
man, so in his mind he made something up that was physically always able to be seen.
Furthermore, night by night the narrator would slowly get closer to killing the old
man and as the nights go on, he is hearing what the narrator thinks to be the old mans heart
beating louder and louder because he thought it was the old man fearing what is going on
during the night. In my thoughts I think that he is hearing his own heart being growing louder
because he is having anxious thoughts about killing the old man in a way that would never
be found out by anyone. Moving on to the point where he murdered the old man, the
heartbeat noise had grown so loud that he thought his neighbor might hear, so he decided
that, that night had to be the night. He went through with his plan to murder the old man, he
then carefully divided his body up, and after that, takes up some pieces of the floorboards
and meticulously puts his body parts underneath so that the crime would never be found
out, and then returns the floorboards to their exact place. After the deed was done, three
police officers showed up at his door because the neighbor said that they heard a shriek
from inside. The narrator invited them in because he had “nothing to hide” as the police
