Every living being in the world has different stories to tell, whether they be good or bad. Although people may have similar situations or have experienced the same things, the fact is no two people have lives that mimic each other. Many authors use different inspirations to write stories, whether that be the sky or nature, but some decide to use their life and experiences to do so. The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story full of suspense written by Edgar Allen Poe, it tells a story in a first-person point of view, allowing the readers to view things from his perspective and know all the emotions he goes through. Poe is known for his tales and poems which touch upon dark subjects, they’re based upon horror and mystery and allows the reader to feel a sense of fear as if they were truly there. Poe implements many literary elements such as setting and imagery which helps build the theme overall. It allows Poe to convey the message that he wants the world to know , that in the end, it is your own sense of guilt that will get to you.
In the short story, The Tell-Tale Heart starts off with rambling, showing a glimpse of insanity within those short moments. The unnamed narrator tells a story, a story in which he confessed to killing an old man but insist that he is still sane. He describes the old man as fragile as if he were waiting for the day that he dies, like an antique ready to give away at any given moment. The story portrays a theme of death, and how death had played a big part in Poe’s past, and it shows a current fear that he one day too would wither away unable to do anything about it. Although the story subtlety resembles Edgar Allen Poe’s past in which he lost many loved ones, the true inspiration used to write the poem was a brutal murder in Salem, Massachusetts. With this, Poe wrote this story to conclude that death is something that is inevitable, that no one can outrun it and slowly it creeps upon us.
Edgar Allen Poe uses many different literary elements to bring his short story to life, such as setting. The story is set in a random old house where minimal details are given. The only clue of whereabouts is the small information given about the interior of the old man’s bedroom, and the fact that he keeps the shutters tightly locked, as if keeping all the light out. The bedroom of the old man is seen as a place of horror, a place where he is completely unaware of the darkness that lies within. The setting brings upon a omnibus feeling, since a bedroom is ideally seen as a safe haven for many, a place where they can remain safe and calm protected from the horrors of the outside world. Yet, the author completely disregards this and turns the bedroom from a sanctuary to a place where people lurk. It allows many to envision and feel the nervousness and tension in the air, a feeling that one is watching. Not only is the use of setting and the theme of death evident in The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe uses the characters own mindset against them, as if it is an echo of one’s true self and the horrors of one’s thought which is hidden deep within unable to be found.
Yet, the real animosity that is shown in The Tell-Tale Heart is not revealed until the mention of the old man’s ‘vulture eye’. It is described as a pale, blue eye with a film over it, and due to this everytime the unnamed narrator looked him in the eye, his blood ran cold, as if it were a premonition to evil to come. Although the narrator claimed to love the old man, he believed that he had to kill the old man and his ‘evil eye’, “For it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” The eye is symbolic, since eyes are normally portrayed as a window to one’s mind and soul, and it was as if it were piercing into the narrator’s heart, as if he were always being watched. The narrator is the prey and the old man is the vulture, which is staring into his soul, this has caused the narrator to murder the old man to free himself from the ‘evil’. After the narrator murdered the old man, he felt relieved, until the police showed up due to complaints and his heart began beating as if it were a drum. The beating of the heart begins to get more and more intense as the narrator denies his own crime, it symbolizes his conscience and his sense of guilt and wrongdoing, as if it were commenting on his humanity slowly fading away.
Through the use of setting and symbolism, the author is able to implement the theme of fear and paranoia throughout the story. Giving off a malice intent, it draws in the reader as if they were actually there. The fear of the eye, and the paranoia of getting caught. Yet, it is ironic that in the end it was the narrator’s own madness that drives him to admit that he had done the evil deed. It was his own conscience that slipped up and the truth came forward.
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