Name : Miftah Maryana
Reg. Number : 12110808
Submitted to : Dr. Shilpa Sharma – EDU698
THE ANALYSIS OF SHORT STORY
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
By Edgar Allan Poe
About The Author
Born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, (aged 40).
American writer, poet, editor, and literacy critic.
Summary
In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator attempts to prove his own sanity in
the wake of having murdered an old man. The Tell-Tale Heart published in 1843. The genre
of this short story is Gothic Literature or Gothic Horror which is a genre that covers horror,
death, and at times romance. The unreliable narrator explains that he loved the old man very
much, but was disturbed by the old man's "evil eye," which he alleges drove him to murder.
The murder is carefully calculated. After killing the old man, the narrator chops up his body
and hides it beneath the floorboards. The police arrive after a neighbor reports having heard a
scream, and the narrator begins to hear the old man's heart beating beneath the floor.
Disturbed, he admits his crime to the police.
Setting
The short story takes place in the 1800s. In the setting room of the old man house at night.
Characterizations
1. The Narrator : He is the central character of the story. He is aware of his insane
thoughts and yet justifies them as sane because he can still strategize and think
intelligently.
2. The Old Man : The old man is a person a great suspense. He seems to be on good
terms with the narrator and is, by all means, a good person. However, he has one ugly
looking pale eye that creates a problem in the mind of the mind of the narrator. He
seems to be a quiet and lonely person and probably lives alone in his room.
3. Three Policeman : They are jovial and do not suspect foul play when they meet the
narrator. In fact, they are easily duped by the narrator’s calm demeanor and end up
chatting with him for a long time.
4. Neighbor : It was the neighbor who alerted the police about the noise in the old man.
Plot and Structure
1. Exposition : The narrator decides he must kill the old man
The unnamed narrator begins to recount some part events involving an old man,
events which he claims even prove his sanity. He said that at first he did not hate the
old man, that he even loved him, He mentions that the old man has strange, vulture-
like eye, and that the old man’s eye give the narrator a strange cold feeling when he
looked at him. It gets worse and worse to the point where the unnamed narrator
decides that the only thing to do is kill the old man so the vulture eye could never look
at him again.
2. Rising Action : For seven nights he enters the old man’s room
The unnamed narrator goes on to explain that he is not mad after all! A madman
cannot plot murder! He then details how every day of the next week he is friendly to
the old man, and at night he creeps into his room. For seven days though he was
unable to kill the old man because he closed his eyes - after all, it was the the culture
eye that forced the unnamed narrator to kill the old man.
3. Climax : The narrator kill the old man
On the eighth night, the old man woke up when the narrator entered the room. The old
man knew that someone was there, and he even screamed in fear. The narrator is
finally able to see the awful vulture eye, and this is what ultimately allows him to kill
the old man. After killing the old man, the unnamed narrator dismembered his body
and placed it under the floorboards.
4. Falling Action : Three policemen respond to a call, the narrator invited them in
The next day, there police officers came to visit the narrator because a neighbor told
them about a strange sound coming from the old man’s house.
5. Resolution : The narrator hears the old dead man’s heartbeat and confesses.
The narrator explains that he invited the policeman in, confident in his success.
Suddenly, though, he began to hear the beating of the old man’s heart under the
floorboards. He thought the policeman were playing a joke on him when they said
they could not hear it, and the beating of the heart got worse and worse until the
narrator was compelled the reveal his crime.
Narrator and Point of View
The Tell-Tale Heart is a Gothic horror story. In this story, the narrator used first person point
of view. It is a dramatic monologue told from the perspective of a person who has commited
a murder. Through telling the story from first person point of view, the writer lets the readers
creep into the mind of the criminal and creates a nervous and suspense effect to the story.
Themes
1. Guilt : The narrator confesses his crime because his guilt grows so great that he can
no longer hold it in.
2. Madness and Sanity : The narrator’s attempt to prove his sanity as he explains his
meticulous plans for killing the old man only prove his madness.
3. Time : The narrator is obsessed by time
Conflict
There is external conflict. Conflict occurs between two people, namely the narrator and the
old man because of different ways of thinking. This conflict occurs because of the vulture eye
of the old man.
Literary Devices
1. Symbolism :
The old man’s eye (The Vulture Eye), and the beating heart. The eye representing evil
and fear and the beating heart representing the narrator’s conscience.
2. Simile : using “like” and “as”.
For example : (1) “a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the
crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye” (2) “black as pitch”
