Essay on 'The Tell-Tale Heart' Character Analysis

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All stories have various elements. At TellTale Heart, literary learners not only have a deeper understanding of the essence of the story through the five elements but also a deeper understanding of why Edgar Allan Poe created the story. By spending time and energy digging into the details, setting, relevant historical background, and author biography, people begin to see the beginning, true motivation, and purpose of the prose or poetry. Only when elements are used to do these things can the reasons and methods of literary works such as 'The Tell-Tale Heart' be unraveled. It is also one of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, known as the pioneer of detective and case-solving stories (Meyers 1992). The short story is about an anonymous narrator who seems to prove he is sane, but exhibits a completely different demeanor because he admits to murdering an elderly 'evil blue eagle eye bald.'

The story unfolds as the narrator spends seven nights planning a crime against the old man, but claims to love him except for his 'eyes' (May 2009). On the eighth night, awakening the old man from his sleep for fear that the neighbors would hear the screams of the man and the violent beating of his heart, the narrator successfully kills and mutilates the body of the man and hides it under the ground. A neighbor who heard the scream reported the incident to the police, who promptly visited and investigated the report the next morning. In the room where the body was buried, the narrator calmly entertained the policemen who never suspected the former's malice. However, a strong heartbeat scared the narrator and he had to confess his crime to the authorities. The story ends here, the story takes place in a 19th-century Boston house, where the main characters, the elders and the narrator live. In introducing a short story, the author usually introduces the background or tone and characters first and sometimes hints at the main conflict. Edgar Allen Poe's 'Informer's Heart' tells of a terrible murder. The narrator himself is the murderer, trying to defend the murderer while convincing the reader that he is sane. However, when he imagined hearing the sound of the deceased's heart beating under the floor, evidence of his madness appeared.

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The first two paragraphs of 'The TellTale Heart' constitute the introduction. The exact scenario is vague because the important thing for the reader to know is the instability of the killer and what he intends to do. The first paragraph sets the tone for the rest of the story. The narrator strongly insists that he is not a lunatic, but that there is a disease that sharpens his senses, thus questioning his rationality in the minds of the readers. The second paragraph made it clear that he intended to kill and gave the motive for committing the crime: the old man had 'vulture eyes' and did not dare to look at him. The main conclusion of 'The TellTale Heart' is that the narrator is insane, which leads him to reveal the body of the old man to the police. However, digging a little deeper, we can draw other conclusions from this story. For example, it can be said that one of the key points of this story is that you cannot escape your conscience, even if it leads to your destruction. This can be clearly shown by what happened to the narrator. Although he was unhealthy and hid the old man's body under the floor, he could not hide what he had done. Therefore, the heartbeat symbolizes the guilt of the narrator. The more he tried to conceal the crime, the stronger his conscience, even though he knew that confession would seriously affect his life and freedom. You chose that option because your conscience must be satisfied. In the end, what this tells the reader is that good always conquers evil. Although the narrator cannot retract what he did, his confession shows that he is trying to correct the problem. Perhaps only when justice is finally served and the narrator is sentenced for the crime will the old man's heart stop beating.

Like many of Poe's narrators, it is clear that the narrator of 'The TellTale Heart' is completely unreliable. His story is so strange, so fantastic, so crazy, and incredible that it is almost impossible to believe a word he said. But when the terrifying reality of his behavior finally came to light, the truth finally came to light: the narrator is a lunatic, he brutally murdered and mutilated an old man, and his evil eyes allegedly disturbed him. We know this because the narrator's irresistible guilt complex manifests itself in the strong and continuous beating of the dead man's heart, the obvious heart of the title. Faced with the truth of his deadly murder, the narrator is so scared that he has no choice but to admit what he has done. Of course, such things don't happen in real life, but within the scope of horror stories, they are completely believable. The only question on the reader's mind is whether the story told by the narrator is credible. The last terrible moment in history should stop this accusation. This man is a mad murderer and will soon pay a high price for his wrongdoings. At the end of Edgar Allen Poe's short story 'Informer's Heart', the killer narrator completely lost it and shipped the game on his own. After killing and dismembering the old man, and getting rid of all his traces under the floor, he completed all the arduous interviews, questions, and inquiries from the interrogation detective. As Poe pushes the suspense and tension to a climax, the narrator thinks he can't stand another minute to keep his appearance, and imagines the victim's heart leaking the game underground with louder and louder ticking. In the end, this is a 'mind first' game of your own choice, which ends with 'almost perfect murder' and disappoints you. Guilt and fear of being discovered caused his psychological defenses to eventually collapse.

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Essay on ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ Character Analysis. (2024, May 20). Edubirdie. Retrieved December 24, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/essay-on-the-tell-tale-heart-character-analysis/
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Essay on ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ Character Analysis. [online]. Available at: <https://edubirdie.com/examples/essay-on-the-tell-tale-heart-character-analysis/> [Accessed 24 Dec. 2024].
Essay on ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ Character Analysis [Internet]. Edubirdie. 2024 May 20 [cited 2024 Dec 24]. Available from: https://edubirdie.com/examples/essay-on-the-tell-tale-heart-character-analysis/
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