Share your literary essay with the rest of the students that chose this short story. Take some time to read 2 or 3 other essays. Comment on them. Your comment should be about something you noticed them doing well from our lessons. For example, "You did a really good job explaining your evidence
The theme is you cant always get away with everything.
ReplyDeleteThe tell tale heart is by edgar allan poe. In the story he has this little voice in his head that tells him to kill this old man. For eight nights he would go in the old man's room and watching him sleep at twelve o'clock. On the eighth night the old man woke up and shouted whos there and that was the night he got killed but the neighbors called the cops because they heard his screams. That night the cops came and there was this little voice in his head that made a ringing sound which cause him to tell the cops that he killed him and then he was caught. The theme of this story if you cant get away with everything.
If the man didn't listen to the little voice in his head he wouldn't have gotten caught. The author showed us this by figurative language. The author likes to use the same sentence a lot in this book. That sentence is “I'm not mad?” because he did like the old man but the little voice in his head didn't.
The author also showed this by the narrator describing how he stalks the old man like prey because he is a psychopath. “ I think that it’s his eye. His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies, and then fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it. When the old man looked at me with his vulture eye a cold feeling went up and down my back; even my blood became cold. And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close the eye forever.”
The author likes you to realize that he is a psychopath by making the whole story in the old man's room. And it all happens at night. The whole entire time the narrator is walking into the old man's room and watching him sleep for an hour. “ every night at about twelve o’clock I slowly open his door. And when the door was open wide enough I put my hand in, and then my head. In my hand i held a light covered with a cloth so that no light showed.And I stood there quietly. Then, Carefully, I lifted the cloth, just so little, so that a single thin, small light fell across the eye. For seven nights i did this, seven long nights, every night at midnight. Always the eye closed, so it was impossible for me to do the work. For It was not the old man I felt i had to kill; it was the eye, his Evil Eye.
The tell tale heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. In this story a man works for an old man with a bad eye and the man thinks that the old man's eye is evil. This leads the man to attempt to murder the old man but each night he feels guilty and can’t bring himself to do it. This guilt leads the man to become insane and eventually on the night the story takes place the man works up the courage to kill the old man and does.
ReplyDeleteAnother idea for the theme could be paranoia but it is guilt leads to insanity because while he does get scared he ends up overcoming it when he kills the old man and when the cops are there he stays calm until the heart which is actually his heart starts beating again and he eventually is driven insane by the cops not hearing the heart.
The first thing that proves that guilt leads to insanity is when he hears the heart he feels guilty but also angered because he thinks that it is the old man's heart but in fact it is his own. The author uses the heart to build tension in the scenes. For example “My easy, quiet manner made the policemen believe my story. So
they sat talking with me in a friendly way. But although I answered
them in the same way, I soon wished that they would go. My head hurt
and there was a strange sound in my ears. I talked more, and faster.
The sound became clearer. And still they sat and talked.
Suddenly I knew that the sound was not in my ears, it was not
just inside my head. At that moment I must have become quite white.
I talked still faster and louder. And the sound, too, became louder. It
was a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a
wall, a sound I knew well. Louder it became, and louder. Why did the
men not go? Louder, louder. I stood up and walked quickly around the
room. I pushed my chair across the floor to make more noise, to cover
that terrible sound. I talked even louder. And still the men sat and
talked, and smiled. Was it possible that they could not hear??
No! They heard! I was certain of it. They knew! Now it was they
who were playing a game with me. I was suffering more than I could
bear, from their smiles, and from that sound. Louder, louder, louder!
Suddenly I could bear it no longer. I pointed at the boards and cried,
“Yes! Yes, I killed him. Pull up the boards and you shall see! I killed
him. But why does his heart not stop beating?! Why does it not stop!?”
This is showing the tension build up with the heartbeat getting louder and using repetition to build even more tension and eventually the man breaks and reveals that he killed the old man because he thought the police were messing with him but he didn’t hear .
The final thing thing that proves the man is insane is that he says things so detailed and repeats that he did things so perfectly.
“Tell Tale Heart” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. What makes this story unique is that it provides a point of view from a mentally ill person. The man, whose name is not mentioned, lives with an older man whose eye brings out the worst of his condition. It’s even because of the eye that the man comes up with a horrible, well-thought-out plan. The story focuses on how the man thinks and feels about the “Evil” eye, and why the idea of murder came up in his mind. The author does a good job of showing how guilt can drive you crazy.
ReplyDeleteFigurative language is used a lot in “Tell Tale Heart.” One of the most common is Repetition. Repetition is used when the man talks about his mental condition. He is constantly saying that he is not mad and his illness makes him stronger when it actually is doing the opposite. Another piece of figurative language that is used is Simile. The man says “Now I could hear a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall. It was the beating of the old man’s heart.” He compares the sound of a clock ticking to the beating of a heart.
Another example of figurative language in the story is Imagery. The author uses Imagery to describe exactly what the “Evil” vulture eye looks like. This part of the story says “His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies, and then fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it. When the old man looked at me with his vulture eye a cold feeling went up and down my back; even my blood became cold.” The shows a good description of the old man’s eye, and why it bothered the main character.
Lastly, one of the most important pieces of figurative language in “Tell Tale Heart” is Climax. The Climax of this short story is the paragraph when the murder takes place. As the man tells and describes his plan for the killing, you can feel an eerie, suspenseful vibe, and it adds to the building up of the Climax. I would say the Climax of “Tell Tale Heart” is “The time had come! I rushed into the room, crying, ‘Die! Die!’ The old man gave a loud cry of fear as I fell upon him and held the bedcovers tightly over his head. Still, his heart was beating; but I smiled as I felt that success was near. For many minutes that heart continued to beat, but at last, the beating stopped. The old man was dead.” The description of his murder is one of the most important and “exciting” parts of the whole story.
Part 2 -
ReplyDeleteThe previous paragraph brings me back to the theme; guilt can drive you crazy. A good example of the theme is when the author writes “Suddenly I could bear it no longer. I pointed at the boards and cried, ‘Yes! Yes, I killed him. Pull up the boards and you shall see! I killed him. But why does his heart not stop beating?! Why does it not stop!?’ “ As he was sitting with the police, his guilt was driving him to insanity. The man went from calm and collected to a crying mess. You could argue that the theme is just guilt in general, but the heartbeats showed how the main character’s guilt for murdering the old man caused him to hear non-existent sounds, and eventually confess to his crime.
The illegal act was committed for one main reason. The “Evil” vulture eye. The eye of the old man creeped the narrator out to the point where he would watch the old man sleep every night. He also mentioned that the eye made his blood turn to ice. At first, his insanity made him feel as if he did nothing wrong by killing the old man- he even smiled as he watched the life drain out of the old man’s body. Anger rose inside the main character every time he saw the vulture eye, making him feel as if he needed to kill the old man.
At the end of the story, when the man is speaking to the cops, he begins to hear heartbeats. He turns pale and tries to drown out the sound, but it doesn’t work. Everything was triggering the man- the heartbeats, the cops’ presence, even their smiles. He immediately confesses, not being able to stand the sound. The readers are left curious about the cop’s reaction, as well as the man's fate.
Part 1
ReplyDeleteTell - Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story about how a eye drives a man with health issues to kill an old man. This short story focuses on the perspective of a man with a mental health problem, it takes us through his perspective like why he killed the man, what was going on in his mind while he killed the man, and how he felt after killing the man. The Author teaches how guilt can drive somebody crazy just like how it drove the man crazy after killing the old man.
“No! They heard! I was certain of it. They knew! Now it was they who were playing a game with me. I was suffering more than I could bear, from their smiles, and from that sound. Louder, louder, louder! Suddenly I could bear it no longer. I pointed at the boards and cried, Yes! Yes, I killed him. Pull up the boards and you shall see! I killed him. But why does his heart not stop beating?! Why does it not stop!?” This is how the man reacted after killed the old man. Although, this may seem like the man is just insane, but it actually shows how guilty the man is after killing the old man.This paragraph shows how the man went from being completely fine to freaking out, which shows how guilty he felt.
Figurative language is used throughout the story to help show the theme of the story. Edgar Allan Poe uses repetition throughout the story, expeccially when he has the man say over and over how he is not mad or insane. “IT’S TRUE! YES, I HAVE BEEN ILL, very ill. But why do you say that I have lost control of my mind, why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad? Indeed, the illness only made my mind, my feelings, my senses stronger, more powerful. My sense of hearing especially became more powerful. I could hear sounds I had never heard before. I heard sounds from heaven; and I heard sounds from hell!” This paragraph shows one of the times the man tells us how he is not insane or mad.
The author also uses simile when comparing the sound of a clock to the sound of the old man's heart beating. “Now I could hear a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall. It was the beating of the old man’s heart.” This paragraph shows how the man is comparing the old man's heart to a clock right before he kills him.
Edgar Allan Poe uses imagery throughout the story. “It is impossible to say how the idea first entered my head. There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye. His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies, and then falls upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it.” This paragraph uses imagery when the man is describing the old man’s eye by saying it's like a vulture eye and by describing the eye.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteFinally, the author uses climax in Tell - Tale Heart. “I tried to stand quietly. But the sound grew louder. The old man’s fear must have been great indeed. And as the sound grew louder my anger became greater and more painful. But it was more than anger. In the quiet night, in the dark silence of the bedroom my anger became fear -- for the heart was beating so loudly that I was sure some one must hear. The time had come! I rushes into the room, crying, Die! Die! The old man gave a loud cry of fear as I fell upon him and held the bedcovers tightly over his head. Steal his heart was beating; but I smiled as I felt that success was near. For many minutes that heart continued to beat; but at last the beating stopped. The old man was dead. I took away the bedcovers and held my ear over his heart.There was no sound. Yes. He was dead! Dead as a stone. His eye would trouble me no more!” The author Climax in this entire paragraph. This paragraph is a very important part in the story because this is where he kills the old man. This makes the paragraph very interesting and intense.
The “Evil Vulture Eye” was the only reason the man killed the old man. The man even says, “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye. His eye was like the eye of a vulture.” The man explains that for several nights he would open the old man’s door and peer inside but, everynight hsi eye was closed so he would leave. Although, one night when the man opened the door he woke up the old man which made him open his eyes. After seeing the old man's eye he jumped on top of him and suffocated him using his bed sheets.
At the end of the story the man becomes very guilty and ends up confessing to killing the old man to the police. He goes from acting completely calm and normal to suddenly freaking out after thinking he is hearing the old man's heart beat still. This leads us as the reader to think that the man is feeling guilty after killing the old man.
Part 1
ReplyDelete“Tell Tale Heart” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It is a very dark and twisted story about a mentally-disturbed narrator and an old man. The narrator loves the old man, but fears his eye. He begins to plan the murder of the old man. After seven long nights of watching the old man sleep, the narrator murders the old man on the eighth night. He hides the newly-severed body in the floorboards. When the police come, the narrator tries to cover up what really happened with a story full of lies. The now-regretful narrator begins to hear the dead old man’s heart beating throughout his mind and the walls of the house. As the sound gets louder, the man goes more insane. He can’t take it anymore. The guilt is making him lose what little he has left of his sanity. That is how the author teaches us about how insanity and guilt can lead us to do crazy things. Insanity can cause you to do things you will feel guilty about later, and guilt can overcome you and make you lose your sanity. They come full circle. You never know what can happen when you lose control.
Throughout the story, the narrator constantly denies that he is insane. In the very beginning of the story, the narrator starts off by telling the readers about how he has total control of his mind. “But why do you say that I have lost control of my mind, why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad?” From this piece of evidence, you learn that the narrator does not realize that he is insane. The narrator says something similar a little later, and then again closer to the end. I think the author used repetition to make the point of how important it is; how the narrator is denying his insanity and madness. People always say that “denial is the first stage of grief.” The narrator is not really grieving, but more-so not accepting that what he is planning to do is wrong. The repetition of him denying that he is not in control of his mind, is how the author is trying to show us he has lost his sanity (he just hasn’t realized it yet). “So I am mad, you say?”
All of the planning that went into the murder beforehand is insane. “Every night about twelve o’clock I slowly opened his door.” “For seven nights I did this, seven long nights, every night at midnight.” He watched the old man for several nights at the same exact time. He was preparing, which is something a mentally-ill madman would do.“The eighth night I was more than usually careful as I opened the door.” The eighth night is when the actual murder happened. He put so much effort in just to kill the old man. However, to prove his sanity he says, “So you think that I am mad? A madman cannot plan.” He is trying to show how he is not a madman himself, but the amount of planning and effort going into the killing is showing signs of insanity. However, you can tell he also feels guilty about what he is doing and about what he is planning on doing because of this next piece of evidence. “During all of the week I was as friendly to the old man as I could be, and warm, and loving.” He would act normal if he knew that what he was doing was okay and sane.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteThe whole reason behind why the narrator killed the old man is because of the old man’s eye. The narrator said that besides the “Vulture Eye” or the “Evil Eye,” he really loved the old man. “I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye. His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies, and then fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it.” These thoughts are coming from the narrator. This shows how guilty he feels for having killed the old man just for the eye. The guilt will follow him forever based on how much he says he loves the old man. To prove that, he also said, “There was no reason for what I did.” He feels guilty for having hurt the old man because he did not have a good reason for doing so. The Eye was what supposedly caused him to hurt the old man. That shows insanity because a regular eye cannot make somebody want to hurt somebody else. Although, it could be argued that the problem does not always lie within others but within yourself, the text clearly is showing that the “Evil Eye” is what caused him to go insane. That shows how insanity can lead you to do crazy things. “For it was not the old man I felt I had to kill; it was the eye, his Evil Eye.” That is why the Eye is so important in the story; it is the cause for all of what happened.
The narrator does some interesting things that show both guilt and insanity when hiding the body. After he murdered the old man, the narrator had to hide the body. What he did was a lot of work just to make sure nobody would find out. “First I cut off the head, then the arms and the legs. I was careful not to let a single drop of blood on the floor. I pulled up three of the boards the formed the floor, and put the pieces of the body there. Then I put the boards down again, carefully, so carefully that no human eye could see that they had been moved.” Cutting up each body part so carefully is something most madmen do to make it harder to find the body. Therefore, that makes him a madman (which means he has lost his sanity). The amount of effort put into hiding the body parts shows that he is guilty, since not only does he not want anyone to find out, he also seems like he cannot look at the old man’s body (especially the “vulture eye”) after what he did.
There is one portion of the plot that really helps show the theme of guilt. This is when the police come to the old man’s house after the neighbors hear screams. The narrator did not seem to be too nervous, but he wanted to make sure that he was not suspicious. He led them throughout the house, while telling them his alibi. “I took them through the whole house, telling them to search it all, to search well.” This piece of evidence shows that he is trying to cover what happened, but also is hiding what really happened because he feels guilty. He covered it up in hopes that, “My easy, quiet manner made the policeman believe my story.” Even though the policemen bought the story, the narrator “soon wished that they would go.” He started hearing the heartbeat, so he could not hide what he had done for that much longer. The narrator had to do so much to hide what he had done, but guilt began to take over. He could not hold in his feelings (guilt) any longer. That is why this portion of the plot shows guilt.
Part 3
ReplyDeleteThe author also uses symbolism to show the theme. Once the old man is dead and hidden away in the floorboards, the narrator can still hear the old man’s heart beating. He does not understand why he continues to hear the heart beating even after the man is dead. He is the only one who hears it beat. “Was it possible that they could not hear??,” thought the narrator. He believes that the policemen are playing a trick on him and mocking him. He does not realize that if he killed the old man, the heart would stop beating. His guilt about killing the old man has made him hear the heart beat. When looking back at what he had done, the narrator thought, “I did not hate the old man; I even loved him.” This shows that he most likely feels guilty for killing the old man. If you loved somebody, but had to hurt them or kill them because of a mental battle, you would most likely feel guilty about it afterwards. With this is mind, you can infer that the heart symbolizes the narrator’s guilt for the murder of the old man. As the narrator gets more and more nervous about the policemen finding out, the sound gets louder. He feels guiltier and guiltier about what he did. He did not want to hurt him, just the “vulture eye,” but the only way to do that was get rid of the whole man. That is how you know he must feel guilty for his previous actions, and now the guilt will follow him forever.
Nearing the end of the story, the sound gets louder. The narrator does not believe he is the only one who can hear the beating of the heart. He refuses to believe it is all in his messed-up mind. “They heard! I was certain of it.” When he cannot take the sound of the heart any longer, he admits to the police about killing the old man. However, he still does not make sense of what is happening and why the heart is still beating. “But why does his heart not stop beating?! Why does it not stop!?” He does not realize that the heart is not actually beating (as he killed the old man), and that it is all in his head. That is when Edgar Allan Poe ends the tale. The sound of the heart beating, the guilt from what the narrator did, and the insanity, all stop. The readers are left wondering what happens next. Does the heart ever stop beating? Does the man get arrested or does he get help? You will never know. Although, you can learn from the narrator’s experience of how insanity and guilt can lead you to do crazy things.
Delaney P
ReplyDeletepart 1
The killer just killed an old man and didn't expect cops to show up so fast. The killer opened the door and there were two cops standing in the doorway. The cops politely asked if they could come in. The cops sat down and asked the killer “have you seen an old man stop by or talk to the old man recently”? This is when all the lies started pouring out. The killer said no. The cops asked “if he has heard any screaming”? The killer said no. All of the questions that have been asked have all been answered with lies.
When police officers we're asking more questions about the old man that suddenly “disappeared”. The killer cracked under pressure and let everything out that happened that night to the old man. The killer was crying on his hands and knees telling the police officers why he killed the old man, where he hid the body, and that it was not his fault. By being honest the killer made it easier for the cops to understand the situation and what happened. Now if the killer would have just told the truth in the beginning it would have made it better for the killer and the police officers to understand the story more clearly and what was going on before the cops arrived.
When the killer killed the old man it was a sigh of relief. Which is odd because usually you would build up stress and anxiety after you do something traumatising. This man was having a tough time before he was killed. He thought he was seeing demons and certain people he knew were demons. The man thought he was ok and didn’t like when people called him crazy because he thought this was normal. When it really wasn’t, the man started realizing that more towards the end of the story.
Delaney P
ReplyDeletepart 2
The beginning of the story, the killer was caught watching the old man thinking that this was normal. Towards the middle of the story he officially killed the old man; the killer became more anxious when the cops showed up. When the cops showed up at the killer's front door, the killer got confused because he was confident about getting away with murder. Then when the killer started to lie to the officers about the old man the killer was making more and more problems that he could have prevented from just telling the truth. Then when the killer could not handle any more questions he snapped and became crazy; crying on his hands and knees, asking what is wrong with him, told the police officers everything that he did, and where he hid the body. Realizing that the police officers played along with the game so the killer wouldn’t suspect anything and tell them what happened to the old man.
When the killer watched the old man at night, he was ancations and in fear. Thenif the old man was awake or even moved in his sleep, the killer would get terrified that the “demand” would kill him. It was scary for the killer because he thought the old man was the devil because the way his eyes would shine in the light. The one night the old man caught being watched by the killer, the killer freaked out and was going crazy. That’s when the killer thought it was best to kill the “demand”. Once the old man was dead, the killer was calm and somehow happy. When the killer was hiding the body, two police officers showed up. This made the killer very nervous. The police officers came inside and asked questions. When the killer couldn’t take the questioning much longer, he snapped. That’s when the killer was crying and told the police officers what happened because he was frightened.
The killer just killed an innocent old man and police officers just arrived at the house. The killer was very surprised that they showed up without hearing any sirens. The killer was thinking fast, had to store the body somewhere know one would ever find it but himself. There was a knock at the door, the killer knew if he kept the police officers waiting they would start to get suspicious. The killer quickly opened the door and there were two police officers standing in his doorway. The police officers asked to come in, the killer let them in. The killer thought that if he stayed calm, answered all their questions right away without any hesitation, they would go away sooner and wouldn't suspect anything that just happened.
Delaney P
ReplyDeletepart 3
It was bad enough that the killer already killed a person and now has to live with that for the rest of their life without telling anyone. Now police officers just showed up out of nowhere. The police officers were asking questions; the killer is just lying to them. There is pressure built on the killer. The killer didn't know that if he just told the truth in the first place and didn't lie to the police officers he would have made the situation for himself. Instead the killer had to lie and build up more pressure on himself which caused him to have a mental breakdown.
The killer became crazy when he met the old man and saw the old man's eyes. Every night when the old man was asleep the killer would be watching him because he thought he was some kind of demand. The killer would watch the old man through a crack in the door, when the killer opened the door to look through he always made sure the light would never shine on his face but just enough light so the killer could see the old man's eyes.
Near the end of the story, the narrator makes the situation more dramatic. The narrator puts more detail into the story so readers really take a good look at what’s happening to the killers mental health. The narrator wants their readers to understand telling the truth is a much bigger deal than most people think.
Rose C- Part 1
ReplyDeleteThe Tell Tale Heart story by Edgar Allan Poe is a story about a man, whom he didn’t identify, but seems to be narrating the story, the killing of an old man. Was he going insane? Edgar Allan Poe that is. During the day he seemed like a nice gentleman but then at night time, he would have different thoughts. Or was it the old man’s eye that was driving him crazy. It seems this short story is from the author’s dark side.
The narrator is the person who has done the killing of the old man. He is narrating it through his views. He seems to be very nervous throughout the whole story. Yet he tells of this tale for seven days and then on the eighth day he decides to finally kill the old man. The narrator speaks of how he loved the old man, but yet he plans on killing him. Yet the description the narrator gives of the old man is “pale blue eye”.
The narrator is trying to say that their is all sorts of figurative language in this story, he’s trying to prove a point. In this story the narrator uses similes, symbols, and personification. He uses all of these figurative language to get everyone’s attention or to get the reader to relate to the story. For example, the “pale blue eye” was used as a symbol throughout the story. What is it a symbol of though. You could see it as a couple of different ways. Is it the symbol of how Poe is seeing the old man through his eyes or is it maybe how the narrator doesn’t want to see things through his eyes. Or maybe it even symbolizes the darkness ihe is seeing..
The narrator watches the old man for seven nights without making a sound and then on the eighth night while watching him makes a noise and disturbes him. Could it be that the narrator is trying to prove a point? Why would he just decide to kill him after seven days of watching him. Maybe it was just because he didn’t like him or was it that eye. Does anyone really know why for sure at this point.. In other words the narrator is trying to explain what is happening in this story and how he reacted to the old man.
Rose C- Part 2
ReplyDeleteSome of the figurative language I found in this short story was personification. In the story, there is a line that states, “Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim.”. He uses it to get the readers to relate by stating that death was close because his shadow was black and it took over his body.
After killing the old man, the narrator disassembles his body to only place him in the floorboards. Not leaving a trace of the old man. Then the police show up asking questions. Was it because someone heard the killing the night before or was it just by chance. Or could it have been someone related to the old man was worried about him and asked the police to see if they could find him. No one really knows at this point. The police not finding anything or reason to accuse him of killing the old man, get ready to leave.
In the end the narrator is finally saying that he did it. The police heard that he did it, so he finally confessed. that he did it. He couldn’t hold it in so he told the officers. They were playing a game with him to test him. He said look under the floorboards and you shall see. Then he asks but why does his heart not stop beating? Could it be that the old man was still alive?
The theme could also have been guilt. At the end of the story, Poe confesses to his crimes. He could have gotten away with the killing of the old man. But the guilt he felt about doing it over took him and he confessed to the crime and dismemberment of the old man's body.
The short story “Tell-Tale Heart'' by Edgar Allan Poe takes place in a small village. The story is unique because of the perspective in which it is told. In the story, the main character, whose name isn’t stated, is mentally unstable, and lets the disliking of one eye drive him to kill a man. He thought of the eye as a vulture eye, and every time he looked at it, it angered him. The police got called in to investigate, and everything was going smoothly. That was, until guilt had driven the narrator to giving himself away. One of the major lessons that the author tries to teach is that the problem doesn’t always lie within others, but within yourself. He teaches that through the way the narrator takes out all his personal problems on others throughout the story. He also fails to realize that he has problems, and refuses to believe that he does anything wrong.
ReplyDeleteIn the story “Tell-tale heart” the author used different types of figurative language to enhance the ways he told the story. One of the main ones that he used was repetition. It starts at the beginning of the story where the author writes, “Listen! Listen, and I will tell you how it happened.” The author uses listen as his repeated word to draw in the attention of the reader. It also is used to gain command and authority in the story, and pulls you into what’s happening.
The author also uses a very important metaphor that has a big impact on the ending of the story. “a sound I knew well. Louder it became, and louder. Why did the men not go? Louder, louder” this was a small section from the end of the story. The sound the narrator hears is the heartbeat of the old man he killed. The heartbeats represent the guilt that he didn’t know he had about killing the man. He blames it on the non existent heart when it really is just his own mind.
The last example of figurative language in the story is imagery. “His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies” was one of my favorite examples of imagery because it shows exactly why he didn’t like the Old man's eye. It gives the readers a little more understanding of why the eye makes the narrator want to kill the man. Not that what he hates is a valid reason to kill the man, but it gives you the characters perspective on the situation.
The plot of the story “The Tell-Tale Heart” has a lot of different events to show our claim. Starting at the beginning of the story the narrator states “It’s true! yes, i have been ill, very ill. But why do you say that I have lost control of my mind, why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad?” This starts off with a good representation of the characters own problems. It shows that he is mentally unstable yet he still tries to believe he has no issues and is fine. Yet once again he is blaming another person for thinking he is crazy when no one said he was.
ReplyDeleteAnother important section from the plot is “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money” The narrator goes out and says that he loves the old man, but he kills him. He talks about the fact that it was the eyes fault and that because the old man’s eye is the way it is he had to kill him. That wasn’t the truth though. The narrator had personal issues with the way he felt about the eye, and because he didn’t believe that he had a problem he killed the old man to resolve the issue.
One more important event happens at the last third of the story. “No! They heard! I was certain of it. They knew! Now it was they who were playing a game with me. I was suffering more than I could bear, from their smiles, and from that sound. Louder, louder, louder!” At this point in the story the narrator's guilt had started to take over but he didn’t believe he was feeling guilt. So instead he blamed his internal problems on the police saying they were playing games with him. Certainly it could be said that guilt is the main theme here. While this is a good point, it fails to account for when you look deeper, guilt just scratches the surface of his problems. You can’t just say guilt is the whole reason for his issues because guilt typically takes after the issue. His personal problems cause him to do actions that result in guilt later on. So here he is letting yet another personal issue control him and make him believe it’s the people around him.
Sticking to the theme of the main character, how do our characters affect the story. Because the story is told through thoughts, actions, and emotions of the narrator; he has a major impact on how we see the story. The narrator creates many problems throughout the story, and most of them only affect himself until he puts the blame on others. This eventually brings them into the equation. The narrator goes through his entire plan and how everything went down through step by step thoughts. He blames others for his problems, and creates witnesses to our claim.
The old man becomes a witness to the narrator's problems because one of them causes the old man to get murdered. The man did nothing to deserve being killed. yet the narrator has driven himself mad over a problem with the man's eyeball.
Another witness to the narrator's problems is the police. They came to investigate the house and didn’t suspect anything. They were chatting with the narrator when all was running to plan. However the guilt takes over the narrator's mind, and starts to drive him insane. He tells the police that he killed the man and ratted himself out. He blames the police and says that they knew and were playing games with him, but all in all it was just his own mind betraying him.
At the end of the story as we know the narrator gives himself away and tells them what he did. All of his problems that he thought were with other people took their toll on him and he went insane. The story does leave off with a little cliffhanger because it doesn’t say what happens to him no one knows. Does he realize that it was his and only his fault or does he continue to lie to himself?
Sawyer K.
ReplyDeleteThe book the Tell-Tale Heart is about a man going insane, and what he did when he went insane. I believe that the main theme of it is that not all problems are externally, sometimes it is internally, or you are the one who caused it. These problems are the ones that show that the world shouldn’t change for you, but you need to change for the world, and for the better. Of course that is not always the case, but it often is.
In the Tell-tale heart, there is a lot of figurative language. Throughout the story, there is a ton of repetition, such as at the beginning, where he continuously says, “It’s true! Yes, I have been ill, very ill. But why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad?” he repeatedly says he has not gone mad, not lost his mind, merely ill, even though he has very clearly gone mad. This helps to prove the point that some conflicts are within yourself, not outside of you. He also repeatedly says his senses have become stronger. He repeats a lot of other things throughout the book, such as how he constantly boasts about how smart his plan was, how smart he was, and how well he carried out the plan. Another piece of figurative language was the heart beat that he heard, which represented his guilt. The reason I know that the heartbeat shows his guilt is because it only shows when he is deciding whether he should kill the old man, or get caught. When he hears the heartbeat, he kills the old man to make it stop, and it does. While the heartbeat could make it seem like the main theme of the book is guilt, I think that it shows that he has gone insane, with it getting louder and louder, making him admit to the murder in the end, and he thinks that everyone can hear it, showing his insanity even more. Later on in the story, when the policemen came to his house, it came back. It slowly became louder and louder, until he was sure that it wasn’t in his head, but that the police officers were playing a game with him. This further proves the point that not all conflicts come from something else, and that you might be the problem. Since he thinks that he isn’t the only one that hears the heartbeat, it represents how people might try to find something else to blame problems on. This is another case of repetition, because he repeatedly says it is getting louder and louder. The heart beat getting louder is a representation of him having more and more guilt, until he has so much guilt that he admits to killing the old man. Another case of figurative language is when he says that the old man’s eye is a vulture eye, which is a metaphor.
Sawyer part 2
ReplyDeleteFor the plot, the man claims not to have gone mad, even though he clearly has. He wants to get rid of the old man’s vulture eye, because it felt like it penetrated right through him. He makes the old man’s eye seem like it is it’s own being. It very clearly is not. He decides that he must get rid of the eye. Each night, he would sneak into the old man’s room, and shine a light onto his eye, and he did this for 7 nights. On the 8th night, when he entered the room, the old man sat up, feeling his presence. The man stands still for a long time, waiting for the old man to go to bed. While he is waiting, he realizes that he either has to get caught, or kill the old man, and as he decides between the two, he begins to hear the old man’s heart beat. Louder and louder it became, until he finally decides to kill him, to stop the heartbeat. After he does this, he buries the body, and the police knock at his door. They say that they had a complaint about noise coming from the house, and wanted to check if everything was alright. He told the police everything was fine and that the old man was gone. They stayed and talked, and after a while, the heartbeat came back. The heartbeat of the old man. At first faint, and then it got louder, and louder and louder until it was so loud that he knew that it couldn’t be in his head, but the police officers were playing a game with him. He tried to drown out the noise, but it was no use. After a while, he finally admits to killing the old man, hoping it would stop the heartbeat..the plot very obviously shows that not all conflicts come from outside, but sometimes from yourself, because he very clearly has gone mad, which is an internal conflict. He thinks that changing other things will help, when he is the one who needs to change.
For the characters, we are not told what their names are, just names like “old man”. The main character of the book is called the narrator. He is who the story is told by, and it is from his perspective. It is very obvious that he has gone insane, because he is killing the old man simply because his eye terrifies him. The second character of the Tell-Tale heart is the old man. He is the one that the narrator wants to kill, because of his vulture eye. He is killed in the middle of the story, and is who’s heartbeat the narrator hears. The other characters are the police officers, who come to check that everything is fine, since the neighbors heard something. They are important for the story since if they didn’t come, the narrator might not have heard the heartbeat again, which represents his guilt. I think this because he might have felt guilt when he told them that the old man was away, and thinking of him made him feel guilty. The only other character in the book is the neighbor who called the police to check in with them, though they are not as important.
Sawyer K. part 3
ReplyDeleteAll in all, figurative language, plot, and the characters all show that problems can come from internally, since the plot shows he is going insane, and that it is an internal struggle. It also shows that when there is an internal struggle, or when it is your fault, people will try to blame it on something else, or someone else, since he blames the heartbeat on the cops. The plot shows him going insane, the internal problem, and the characters show that it isn’t an external problem, but that it is internal.