Class # 14

Frisnedi, Nadine T.
2013101056

HUM15/ B8
August 23, 2014
Q4
Forever Haunted

I need to tell you something. Reading Edgar Allan Poes Tell Tale Heart, I felt really
weird and excited. But the truth is, I felt scared. Do you want to know why? Well, before I tell
you I need to first give you what are the elements that comprise the short story. So, I will begin
first with the setting which is the time and location in story takes place. I don't know where the
narrator is while he's telling the story of the old man's murder. The story he tells us takes place
inside a random old house that is has wooden floorboards. The social condition of the character
tells that they still use lanterns and the way they live is during the older times and the mood
created from the beginning of the story was eerie, dark and frightening.
The next element of this short story is the characters. The main character was the narrator.
He is such a wreck, it's hard not to feel sorry for him. Hes so nervous, paranoid, and mentally ill.
He doesn't know the difference between the "real" and the "unreal". He might be the protagonist
and the antagonist at the same time because he is a murderer. The old man is mysterious maybe
because we only see him through the narrator's perspective. He also has a blue eye that the
narrator is afraid of. I assume that the old man trusts the narrator because he is good to the
narrator before he was killed and he just leaves his door unlocked. His senses are definitely poor
and incapable of defending himself. The neighbor plays a small but important role in the story.
The scream of the old man was heard by the neighbor whom calls the police. The three
policemen did exactly what they are supposed to do after a report. Furthermore, they don't leave
after the narrator has given them the tour of the house, but seem to stick around to see what such
pressure might induce.
The third element of the story is the plot. It is the sequence of major events in a story,
usually in a cause-effect relation. The introduction of the story tells the feelings of the narrator.
This story takes place in a house. The old man has a vulture eye that is pale blue. This eye
bothered the narrator who crept into his room every night for a week, waiting to kill him. Other
than that the narrator liked him and didnt have any problem with him. The rising action tells us

that the conflict is external, Human Vs. Human. The narrator wants to get rid of the old mans
eye forever because he cant take it any longer so he decides to kill him.
The climax of the story is when the main character which is the narrator tells that he has
really become mad. He tries to lessen his nervousness to that his hearing wont be so sensitive
and powerful. One the eighth night that the narrator snuck into the old mans room the narrator
made a sound while opening the lantern with his thumb. The old man got up in bed and sat there
for over an hour. The narrator waited for the old man to fall back asleep. He never did. Then the
narrator decided to open the lantern, shining a ray of light on the open vulture eye. The old mans
heart started beating, steadily increasing in sound. Soon the noise was too loud for the narrators
sensitive ears to handle and he lunged at the old man who screamed loudly. He attacks and kills
him. He then dismembers the body and placed them beneath the floorboards. The storys falling
action is when a problem have developed because a neighbor heard the old mans scream and
called the police. When the policemen arrive the narrator tells them that the scream was made by
him because of a bad dream. They believe him but are obligated to take a look around. The story
ends with the narrator leads the policemen into the room where the crime happened. They
chatted and did not suspect anything. Then the narrator hears a sound that steadily increases and
makes him go crazy. He though that its the beating heart of the old man beneath. He throws a fit
and tells the police that he killed the old man and screams at them to rip up the floorboards. The
conflict is resolved by the narrator losing it and admitting to the police his brutal murder.
The fourth element of the story is the point of view. In the story, the author used a first
persons view which is the narrator. The story was told through the perspective of the narrator.
The style is more of chaotic. He tells that he has no problem with the old man but only with his
eyes. It completely shows conflict and chaos because he chose to kill the old man. The story was
written cleverly with lots of images and will surely make you feel like you are also in the story.
Lastly the theme of the story is giving versions of reality. Something sparks our curiosity and
forces us to follow the narrator. We hear the story of murder through words, and through his
version of reality. The narrator gave us a tale of cunning and cleverness, and delivers. And the
last theme is mortality. People die in different ways but when a murder happens, the murderer
cannot live peacefully anymore.

The story has images. The old man's eye is blue with a "film" or "veil" covering it. This
could be a medical condition, but eyes symbolizes how we see the world. After hiding the old
man's body, the narrator "replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye not
even his [the old man's] could have detected anything wrong". That statement implies that the
eye could see hidden things. The watch serves as a visual and auditory representation of time.
Each tick of the watch symbolizes a movement closer to the inevitable death that all humans
face. The lantern the narrator used is cool because the light can be adjusted to let in as much or as
little light as you want. It suggests that sometimes there is light hiding in the darkest places. The
bed in symbolizes the opposite of what beds and bedrooms should be about. The narrator uses
the bed as weapon to snuff out the old man. The bedroom also become the burial place. This is
really creepy.
Okay, at the start I told you I felt scared upon reading Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale
Heart". Those words make me feel like I was really there. I might have told you in this essay
what really happened in the story already and I felt really weird. Poe is a really great writer, he
makes use of words effectively and makes you think on what will happen or why that was the
title of the story. I finally know the answers to these but this story still teaches us more. We
should never judge people solely by appearance. Physical flaws should not determine how we
feel about or act toward people. When the narrator talks about the old man, tells that he is a good
man and only his eye is the problem. This is a problem in appearance and we cannot change that.
Accept others and if you feel bothered then dont mingle with them and find another place to go.
We should practice self-control of both our thoughts and actions. Perhaps there are times in our
lives when this is an acceptable or even a positive thing to do; however, when the action is
something with long-lasting ramifications. As soon as the narrator has a thought, he acts on it.
Think carefully of what your decisions will do or bring. Finally, we need to understand that our
guilt is likely to give us away if we have done something wrong. We have done something wrong
our guilt begins to work on us. There is something natural in us, even in this cold-hearted and
perhaps insane narrator, which knows right from wrong. In this case, the narrator appears to be
calm and detached about what he has done, but when faced with the law, he cracks. Do what is
right all the time, because whatever bad thing you do, will forever haunt you.
References:

Poe, Edgar Allan (Date Retrieved: 21 August

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/POE/telltale.html

2014).

Tell

Tale

Heart

From:

Tell Tale Heart Summary (Date Retrieved: 21 August 2014). From http://www.shmoop.com/telltale-heart.html