Edgar Allen Poe is the genius responsible for dark, twisting, and often uncomfortably wondrous gothic tales, and one of the best is 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' This is a classic tale of a confused man who is so incredibly bothered by his housemate's eye, that he (I am assuming this sexless character is male) thinks the only solution is to resort to cold-blooded murder. Poe incorporates the symbol of the old man's eye in 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' which has both physical and psychological meaning, it also helps to develop the plot and central conflicts in the story. The eye allows a better understanding of the narrator's mental state, represents an omniscient/fatherly figure, and helps illustrate the theme of good verses evil.
The story?s conflict revolves around the narrator plotting, planning, and executing a man?s death, yet it is the eye that causes this man?s obsession with murder. Another important conflict in the story is that of the narrators struggle to prove he is sane, he does this by trying to make the eye seem evil, more evil than his own deeds. The only reason the narrator gives for his decision of murder is the man?s eye, and it is the eye the narrator must see before he can actually kill the man. In the end of the story, the disposing of the eye actually leads to the narrator?s downfall. As you can see, the eye is the story?s main conflict, which helps to develop the plot, and really allows for a deeper understanding of the story.
The author uses the eye to provide clues as to why the narrator is so unreliable. ?I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!? (Poe 721), the narrator uses the statement ?I think?, implying that he is obviously not very sure, and definitely unstable, since something he ?thinks? is a problem...
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..., which is one reason why he?s trying to prove himself as sane. This theme can be tied into the fatherly figure, by showing his struggle to stay ?good? in the eyes of his father, yet we have already established that he really does understand that he is going insane, and since he comprehends this transition, he must kill the judging fatherly figure so he doesn?t see his turn to ?evil.?
The eye helps to show the narrators spiral into insanity, the father/son relationship occurring between the narrator and old man, and the ever transient theme of good verses evil. ?The Tale-Tell Heart? uses such blatant symbolism that it?s almost easy to skip right over and not notice, but the understanding of the ?eye? is the key to this famous tale. Edgar Allan Poe is absolutely ingenious, and for obvious reasons his work will always be considered as distinguished ?classics?.
1. In “The Tell Tale Heart”, I found that the old man's eye symbolizes the old man's having inner vision. In the story, it states that the eye is a pale blue with some kind of of film resting over it. The narrator describes the eye as having the likeness of a vulture. In the world of nature, vultures are scavengers that stalk and wait for animals to die before they land on dead animals to feast on the remains. That makes them always present and very diligent, they see what goes on around them and take opportunities where they see fit. This could be the reason the narrator use the old man's eye as a reason for killing him; maybe he is paranoid that the old man knows the true motives of his heart and mind and is aware of his insanity or sins. The beating heart can generally be thought of as person's life clock inside them, counting the breaths they take. The beating heart could also symbolize the narrator's guilt of his murder or his fear of being found out as the culprit of the crime. However, since the beating start only after the old man is killed and the sound of the beating of the heart is heard by him alone, it could also be a symbol of the narrator's insanity. 2. The narrator doesn’t do much to disprove his insanity, except repeatedly saying “I am not mad”. Though his description of killing the old man, the reason for the murder and the reson for his confession all seem to show otherwise. The heart beating is obviously in the narrator's imagination and seems to further prove his insanity, since the old mans heart obviously can’t beat since he is dead. The narrator wanting to kill an old man just because of his abnormal eye is probably the first and foremost sign of his unsettled mind. In the story, the narrator stated, “I lov...
Many of Poe’s stories and poems can be tied to events that have happened in his life. A lot of the hard times that he had had gone through in his life he used as motivation to write his poems and stories. For example the story “The Masque of the Red Death” is thought of to be related to the consumption (aka tuberculosis), which took the life of many of the women he loved. In “The Tell Tale Heart” the dying old man good be seen as Poe’s adoptive father on his death bed, and how the old mans eye made the murderer uncomfortable could be an analogy for how Poe’s father made him feel uncomfortable because he knew that his father did not love him.
In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, there are only five characters mentioned in the story: the narrator, the old man, and three police officers, none of whom is ever named. Throughout the story, the narrator tells the audience over and over that he is not mad. He becomes obsessed with trying to prove that he is not a madman and eventually goes crazy in the end. He tells the story of how he kills the old man after seven nights of watching him sleep. He has nothing against the old man and actually likes him, but it is the old man’s pale blue eye with a film over it that overwhelms the narrator with anger. This is when he decides to rid of this “vulture eye,” by murdering the old man. After finally finishing what he had set out to do, three policemen show up because of a complaint about a shriek. The narrator assures them that it was him that had shrieked because of a nightmare and asks the officers to sit with him. While talking with them, confident that they knew nothing, he starts to hear a noise increasingly get louder. He eventually cannot take it anymore and
In "The Tell-Tale Heart," by Edgar Allen Poe, the setting, the plot, the characters and even the point of view are great contributing factors to the overall reaction of the readers of the narrative.
Poe makes his characters more human than human. This allows many readers to become interested simply because they can identify with how the characters feel. Poe uses very basic human emotions like fear, hatred, anxiety and guilt to draw in audience's interests. The main character in The Tell-Tale Heart had an unnatural hatred for a physical characteristic on a friend. He 'thinks it was his eye! yes, it was [that]! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture, a pale blue eye, with a film over it';, his blood ran cold whenever it fell upon him (106). This is something many people can identify with as many have experienced a hatred for a physical characteristic on someone they know. Just as the character did not understand the hatred but just saw this body part, far out of the control of the old man, as something to be vanquished. The simple emotions of fear and hatred put forth to the reader come through clearly Poe's writing technique.
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator realizes that he absences a reason for killing the old man he lives with. He even starts to admit having to love the man. He states, “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye” (Poe 64). Psychosis is seen in the difficult rationality the narrator uses to defend his murder. The logic the narrator provides is that he thinks the desire to murder the old man results from the man’s eye, which bothers him. He says, “When the old man looked at me with his vulture eye a cold feeling went up and down my back; even my blood became cold. And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye forever!” (Poe 65). The fact that by this man’s eye is what makes him very angry is such a irrelevant reason for the narrator to kill him. This proves that he is not mentally stable, anyone in their right state of mind would not want to commit such a crime due to an irritation of someone’s eye. This represents the idea that this narrator expresses his complete lack of sanity through the premeditation and planning he put into committing the murder. In the beginning of the story, he says “vulture eye” giving the impression that he is uncertain that the eye is the reason for the murder, he also says how he thinks it’s the eye, he uses past tense as opposed to declaring with certainty that this is why the killing of the man. This shows the contrast to how as a sane person would be sure that this is their reason for killing another person before committing.
In this particular story, Poe decided to write it in the first person narrative. This technique is used to get inside the main character's head and view his thoughts and are often exciting. The narrator in the Tell-Tale Heart is telling the story on how he killed the old man while pleading his sanity. To quote a phrase from the first paragraph, "The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story." This shows that we are in his thou...
Both Poe and Hawthorne used symbolism to tell their stories. In The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe uses a number of symbols such as the old man’s eye and heart. The narrator notes that the old man’s eye “the eye of a vulture….whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” is the reason the old man must be killed - even though he “loved the old man” (Poe 691). When he looks into the old man’s ro...
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” murders an elderly man because he is fearful of the man’s “evil eye.” “He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 37). The narrator explains that he is haunted by the man’s eye and the only way to
Tell-Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allan Poe, depicts the inner conflict of a murderer as he retells his story of how he came to kill the old man as a means to prove his sanity. The story is told in the point of view of an unreliable narrator, of whom is greatly disturbed by the eye of a geriatric man. The eye in question is described as evil, irritating the narrator beyond his comprehension, to the point when he has no choice but to get rid of the vexation by destroying the eye. This short story is similar to The Black Cat, of which is also penned by Poe. In The Black Cat, the narrator, albeit unreliable, describes his wrongdoings to the reader. He tells his story of how he murdered his wife, killed one of the two cats, and trapped the other
The fixation on the old man's vulture-like eye forces the narrator to concoct a plan to eliminate the old man. The narrator confesses the sole reason for killing the old man is his eye: "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to rid myself of the eye for ever" (34). The narrator begins his tale of betrayal by trying to convince the reader he is not insane, but the reader quickly surmises the narrator indeed is out of control. The fact that the old man's eye is the only motivation to murder proves the narrator is so mentally unstable that he must search for justification to kill. In his mind, he rationalizes murder with his own unreasonable fear of the eye.
The story opens with the narrator explaining his sanity after murdering his companion. By immediately presenting the reader with the textbook definition of an unreliable narrator, Poe attempts to distort his audience’s perceptions from the beginning. This point is further emphasized by his focus on the perceived nexus of madness; the eye. Poe, through the narrator, compares the old man’s eye to the eye of a vulture. Because vultures are birds that prey on the weak and depend on their eyesight to hunt, it is easy to deduct that Poe’s intention is to connect the narrator’s guilt and his interpretation of events in his life. By equating the eye to the old man’s ability to see more than what others see, Poe allows the narrator to explore the idea that this eye can see his weakness; the evil that lies in the narrator’s heart and that which makes him unacceptable. Knowing that he is damaged makes the narrato...
In the story, the eye symbolizes fear and pain. The eye creates conflict for the narrator because the narrator explains that he has a problem that causes him to have sensitive hearing, so he went crazy when he heard loud noises (like the deathwatch and the Man’s heart beating). One way it created conflict for the narrator was when he was watching the man sleep. Before he killed the man, he watched him sleep and he wasn’t able to kill him because his eye wasn’t open and he couldn’t see it, however, when he went to his room and watched him sleep, he mentions the beating of the man’s heart was getting louder and saying he heard death watches in -the wall. Once it got to the point where he lost it, he made a noise, woke the man up, killed him and
...deas for what the story could represent. After studying the "Evil eye" in this story, I have no doubt that the eye is that of God.
Three elements of literary work that truly sum up the theme of The Tell Tale Heart are setting, character, and language. Through these elements we can easily see how guilt, an emotion, can be more powerful than insanity. Even the most demented criminal has feelings of guilt, if not remorse, for what he has done. This is shown exquisitely in Poe's writing. All three elements were used to their extreme to convey the theme. The balance of the elements is such that some flow into others. It is sometimes hard to distinguish one from another. Poe's usage of these elements shows his mastery not only over the pen, but over the mind as well.