Abstract
This paper looks at how Poe used several themes in "The Tell-Tale Heart" to make the story come alive. The use of body parts and insanity is looked at specifically.

From the Paper
"Several of Poe's stories use the idea of self-projection in either of people or in objects. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," Poe uses the old man's eye as the object in which the narrator projects his self-image. The story itself is filled with the psychological ranting of a man possessed with hatred for that one body part of a kindly old man. The reason that Poe uses this body part to be the focus of the narrator's hatred was more than just coincidence; he chose the eye for several very specific reasons. As in many of Poe's stories, darkness, evil, hatred, and insanity are important elements to "The Tell-Tale Heart," but as in any good story, every detail Poe uses is important in one way or another to the story."

Tags:allen, edgar, eye, heart, house, insane, insanity, poe, tale, tell, telltale, usher

Abstract
This essay explores the techniques used for creating fear in the reader in "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. The essay argues that the most powerful technique Poe uses to cause fear in this story is creating a main character who is mad. Further, the essay argues that "The Tell-Tale Heart" is an effective horror story because Poe develops a narrator that the reader can relate to, even if the reader knows the narrator is mad. The essay suggests that by doing this, Poe not only leaves the reader wondering if the narrator is mad, but doubting if the reader himself is mad as well.

From the Paper
"We also become frightened when we realize that this crazy man could be someone we know. This is truly horrifying when we read how the narrator imagines what the old man must be going thorough. For example, he thinks that the fright of the old man must be "extreme! It grew louder, I say louder, every moment!" (191). What we must realize is that the fright does not belong to the old man, but to the narrator. Poe increases fright when we read how the narrator dismembers the old man in the bathtub with his crazy reaction, "ha! ha!" (191). As if with a door slamming shut, Poe is closing the case on whether or no this narrator is crazy or sane."

Tags:literary technique, character development

Abstract
This paper shows how Edgar Allan Poe in "The Tell Tale Heart" creates an exquisite horror story built around the central symbol of the Tell Tale Heart of the title. This symbol reverberates with underlying symbols of madness and fear and interacts with the image of the vulture eye that must be murdered. The writer explains how the narrator's mind is controlled by fear, and this fear has lead to insanity. When the story starts the narrator has already scared himself out of his wits and at the end he finds exactly what his unbalanced mind is looking for, the absolute in mortal terror.

From the Paper
"This eye become a symbol, or perhaps even a pun, for the I, or mad self of the narrator. It is an eye with a film over it, an unseeing eye, perhaps the eye of the murderer himself, just as the heartbeat is his own heartbeat. He cannot see into himself. He is so insane that he believes his plan is wise. "Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity." His mind is so twisted he believes that in bringing fear to the old man he will be able to kill his own fear. He will not kill the old man while the eye is closed. It has to be open. It has to know fear as he kills it. The murderer doesn't understand his own motivation, which is to feed his own fear, as a vulture feeds, unendingly, seeking one carrion corpse after another. Poe works the image so that narrator merges with the eye and the vulture as he destroys himself and the eye (I). "

Tags:murder, story, horror, symbol, eye, evil, narrator, novel

Abstract
This paper explains that Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" succeeds because it is a scary story. The author points out that Poe utilizes the narrator's interior monologue in this story as an effective tool to provide a glimpse into this man's whose deteriorating sanity is an excellent example of how people can deceive themselves--especially in their own minds. The paper relates that the old man's beating heart is present only in the narrator's mind and may very well be the sound of his own heart pounding away in his chest after he has just completed his cruel act.

From the Paper
"In many ways, Poe established a new way of storytelling. Jack Sullivan notes that Poe "revolutionized the horror tale, endowing it with new psychological insight and consistency of tone and atmosphere." Poe's tales are "painfully artful, interrupted by quotations and foreign phrases, and cluttered with adjectives as rococo as headstones in a Hollywood cemetery." Many of Poe's tales can best be described as "tales of intrusion--whether culmination in the act of violent murder or in the psychological violation of another person or in describing the internal war of the divided self." "The Tell-tale Heart" features what Parini calls "internalized elements of anxiety and fear pushed to an unrelenting extreme." The narrator's anxiety and our fear work together to create a heightened sense of terror as we read the story. We become attached to this man and his emotions because he is so intent on expressing them and so intent on us reading them and believing him."

Tags:narrator, scary, sanity, monologue, cruel

Abstract
This paper discusses Robert Kachur's assertion that Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" is literally about incest. The paper looks at how Kachur first introduces the reader to some history about the publishing of incestuous accounts and then attempts to understand sexual abuse within the story. The paper also discusses how Kachur examines interfamilial incest as it occurs within society as a link to mental illness.

From the Paper
"It isn't only in murdering the old man that the narrator has pleasure, Kachur observes. Stalking him elicits a sexual gratification and "double life" as well (6). For example, "the narrator's emphasis on the penetration of his head into the old man's private spaces---and, specifically, thrusting his head in with an emphasis on keeping the illicit penetration as secret as possible" shows, as Kachur says, both the gratification gained and the need to keep the actions a secret, similar to how "intrafamilial [sic] incest perpetrator's tactics" work (6). It is this way that the victim may actually deny the events are happening, as does the narrator with his victimized status. That is, by leading a double life, one in which the abuser molests by night and nurtures by day, the victim may deny the abuse because he may want to believe in only the nurturing part of the day. "
A Tell Tale Story of Incest According to Robert Kachur

Most overtly, "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe is a story about an incredibly delusional and paranoid person who kills an old man for no other reason than the man's vulture-like eye. Closer reading might reveal a story in which Freud may describe as a classic, albeit extreme, case of a repressed Oedipal Complex coming to actualization. Robert Kachur, understanding the many routes of psychological examinations when reading "The Tell Tale Heart," argues that while previous analyses touch on important psychological concepts, they miss what the story may be really about. That is, Kachur asserts that "this tale, like many other gothic narratives before it, explores incest" and the narrator's post-traumatic stress disorder as a result (1).

Tags:old, man, murder

Abstract
This paper describes Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart" as a character-driven narrative that lures the reader into a plot seen only from one man's perspective. The writer notes that Poe is notable for a literary style that lends itself to this particular genre of gothic fiction. The paper illustrates the wonderful and dark tale of psychological horror and drama that Poe weaves, through his skilled usage of dramatic elements like plot, characterization, style, point of view, style, and theme.

From the Paper
"Short stories contain condensed versions of human pathos and experience that leave indelible marks on the psyche. Edgar Allen Poe's classic "The Tell-Tale Heart" combines elements of macabre and suspense to create an exceptional psychological drama. Standing out among American authors, Poe stands on dark themes to weave his short stories. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is particularly revealing of character; it is basically the monologue of one character, the unnamed narrator. This protagonist tells the reader his innermost fears and dreams, which border on the insane. In fact, Poe's protagonist refutes his madness directly, using unique second person point of view: "You fancy me mad." His character is lifelike from the first sentences of the story and the reader perceives everything through the senses of the narrator. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a character-driven narrative that lures the reader into a plot seen only from one man's perspective. Poe is notable for a literary style that lends itself to this particular genre of gothic fiction."

Tags:psychological, drama, macabre, gothic, horror, protagonist, madman

Abstract
The paper asserts that Edgar Allan Poe's ability to craft the perfect story of terror is illustrated in "The Tell-Tale Heart". The paper shows how this story is a step into the surreal because it is just real enough to be believable and unreal enough to be considered a horror tale. The paper explains that Poe terrifies us this way, because he knows that nothing is more frightening than fiction peppered with truth.

From the Paper
"A true story of terror is one that frightens us from the inside out. Tales that contain just enough truth for us to believe that they might be true pull us into the realm of terror because nothing is more frightening than the truth. One story that demonstrates this point is "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. This story is an adventure in terror that begins with madness and ends with murder. Poe's ability to craft the perfect story of terror is illustrated in "The Tell-Tale Heart" because he takes us into the mind of the narrator."

Tags:narrator, madness, realism, anxiety

Abstract
The writer provides a brief description of the story and shows that in the last paragraph, one can tell that the character's conscience comes into play, thus driving him to confess. The writer states that the conscience is the reason why the narrator in "The Tell Tale Heart" gave himself away.

From the Paper
"Through out Poe's story, one recognizes that the man, who is identified as the narrator, is a bit fanatical. One can tell this by the events in the story. The narrator looking at the man in his sleep, paying close attention to his eye, and the brutal way that the narrator killed the poor man, is just mere justification that this man is indeed crazy. But no matter how mad the man is, is the truth will always come to surface in the end because ones conscience will always play a role in finding the truth."

Tags:conscience, guilty, truth

Abstract
In this paper, the author compares and contrasts the narrative techniques in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" to see how the authors have used narrative point of view to achieve their unique qualities.

From the Paper
"Poe's choice of first-person narration lends a great ironic twist to the story: the narrator thinks that he is sane and that his view of reality is rational, but we readers see that he is a madman. The subjectivity of the narrative is never open to any other point of view but of the narrator. Had "The Tell-Tale Heart" been told from any other narrative point of view, had we heard the story from the police or from the neighbors who heard the shriek, the effect upon the reader would have been quite different. "

Tags:plot, character

Abstract
This paper explains how Edgar Allan Poe and James Joyce use setting, characters, plot, and symbols in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "Araby" to establish the theme of frustrated escape.

From the Paper
"The setting and action of "The Tell-Tale Heart" emphasize frustrated escape by providing a context for the theme. Poe sets the story in a dark Gothic apartment where the action takes place after midnight. Darkness is a metaphor for evil and death; by placing the action at midnight, Poe provides an excellent psychological scenario for murder and madness. "

Tags:escape, guilt, hiding