The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

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Edgar Allen Poe once said, “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” There have been so many breathtaking stories, but none of them has influenced literature the way The Tell Tale Heart did. The Tell Tale Heart is a short story published in 1843, and written by Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston in 1809. He was the son of impoverishes actor Elizabeth and David Allen Poe. He became an orphan at the age of three whereby he lost his father by desertion and his mother to tuberculosis. He moved in with the Allan family, John and Frances, but his relationship with his foster father suffered irreparable damage. Edgar Allen Poe became an alcoholic due to depression, unemployment and financial hardships (Meyers 102). He later died in the year 1949 under unclear circumstances. The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe has several themes, but tone obvious theme in the story is insanity.
The Tell Tale Heart is a story about an unnamed narrator who lived with an old man with a blue, pale, filmy eye. The story starts with the narrator stating that he is not mad, yet everything he tells show that he is mad. The unknown narrator recounts the events leading up to his murdering of an old man. The narrator murdered the old man because of his pale blue eye. He late explains the rationale behind his actions and tries to convince the reader that he killed him because he could not stand the sight of the man’s evil eye staring at him.
The theme of insanity is the most important theme in The Tell Tale Heart short story. In the beginning of the story, Poe writes, “How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story,” (Poe 121). This is when the ...

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...a committed a murder and its wrong. The way the protagonist comfortably talks of the old man’s murder clearly shows his insanity in the story. The narrator started the story by protesting his sanity, but in the end, it is evident that, he is truly insane through his actions. Only an insane person could do what the narrator did, killing an innocent man and even mutilating his body. Edgar Allan Poe uses the narrator to display the theme of insanity in his book, The Tell Tale Heart.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tale Heart. New York: Bantam Classics, 1983. Print.
Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992. Print.
Womack, Martha. “Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.” Poedecoder.com. N.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
Zimmerman, Brett. Edgar Allan Poe: rhetoric and style. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. Print.

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