Tell Tale Heart

A detailed Summary of Tell Tale Heart

In Edgar Allan Poe's short-story, "The Tell-Tale Heart," the speaker of the story tries to convince the reader that he is not mad. But by the speaker telling the story as he does, he answers his own question that he asks the reader at the start of the story, "...why will you say I am mad?" ( Introduction to Literature, page 415). He attempts to tell his story in a calm manner, but as he describes various parts, he begins ranting with a great level of passion. The speaker pays particular attention to emphasize specific parts of his story. He is sure to highlight that he is simply nervous, and that he could not possibly be mad because as he says, "the disease had sharpened my senses" (415). Rather the disease, as he refers to his madness, only allowed him to hear more clearly those sounds of his imagination, to see what his mind wanted him to see. He kills the old man because the old man had an evil eye of that of a vulture which would make the speaker's blood run cold when he was looked upon. He even says he loved the old man, never does the speaker refer to him as anything else, but because of how the old man's eye looked the speaker needed to destroy it. This is the start of the speaker's madness, and as the reader listens to wha

His fevered imagination brought him to great heights of creativity and the depths of paranoiac despair. Yet although he produced a relatively small volume of work, he virtually invented the horror and detective genres and his literary legacy endures to this day.

t the speaker says, the madness within the speaker becomes apparent. For eight nights in a row, the speaker went to the old man's chamber and cast a shred of light upon his eye that the speaker so hated. For seven nights, it was always shut, and the speaker could do nothing because it was only the eye that he hated. On the eighth, the speaker makes some noise accidentally, and as a result when he finally shines the light upon the eye it is open for the speaker to see. At this point the level of the speaker's madness heightens greatly, with his ears hearing "the beating of the old man's heart" (417). Every moment this sound grows louder and faster, pounding in the speaker's ear like that of a drum and thus fueling his fury. Was it really the old man's heart though? Even after the speaker kills the old man, he still hears the heart slowly pounding and then finally stopping. Was it the old man's heart, or rather was the speaker hearing his own heart beat in his ears? As the speakers rage and excitement grew, so did the sound. It did not go away until after the speaker slowly calmed down, his deed of death being finished. The speaker answers this question very quickly for the reader. The speaker goes to great lengths

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 999
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English