Tell-Tale Heart

A detailed Summary of Tell-Tale Heart


In the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe, the main theme is portrayed by the narrator and how he is unreliable and insane no matter how hard he tries to prove to the audience that he is not. One of the most important aspects of narrative is person, which often determines the perspective from which a story is told. A first-person narrative involves the main character telling a story from his own perspective.

The narrator starts the story by explaining to the reader that he is not mad but sane; he believes that his killing is like methodical. With these sick plans, it is amazing how the author makes the narrator so sick, twisted and unreliable. "It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I might not disturb the old man's sleep."(E.A.P p.197) For one thing, his reason for committing the murder is neither for money nor for a passion for killing but rather because he feared the old man's pale blue eyes, "Fo


It may be believed that the heart thumping that he hears does not belong to the old man himself, but to the narrator. Even though he tries very hard to prove to the reader that he is calm and that the man is rather frightened, it is really the murderer who is nervous and frightened. Mistaking the old man's heartbeat for his own, he ends up turning him in. Because of this episode, it may be seen that he is unreliable. Undoubtedly, our murderer is crazy and insane and the reader cannot believe anything that he accounts for; the narrator can not tell his own heart beat from another's.

In conclusion, although the narrator tries to persuade the reader to believe that he is sane, the reader will always know that he is really insane. Edgar Allan Poe emphasizes on the point of view of the character as his most important element of literature in order to depict the narrator's insanity. The way the author writes this story shows how people can be very strange

Some common words found in the essay are:
Allan Poe, , Edgar Allan, reader believe, edgar allan, narrator tries, allan poe, pale blue, edgar allan poe,

Approximate Word count = 645
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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