The pattern becomes more and more erratic which suggests to the reader an increase in volume and power, the shouting and desperate voice resounds in the reader’s mind, drawing us along inexorably into the chaotic whirlpool of the narrator’s insanity. The building pressure exerted by his unconscious, compelling him to confess is clearly felt by all who read this passage. Finally he vocalises his anguish in an effort to relieve the pressure that he felt to be suffocating him ‘I felt that I must scream or die!’ The final paragraph sums it all up:
‘“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!-tear up the planks! here, here!-it is the beating of his hideous heart!”’
(When he shrieks ‘Villains’ it is almost as if he is talking to the voices
in his mind not just to the officers.)
Use of the unexpected is limited because Poe essentially follows and explores the same type of plot in every one of his tales. The reader who is well versed in Gothic horror already knows the main outline of what is going to happen and anyone who knows Poe’s writing style will acknowledge his tendency to stick with the classic Gothic horror blueprint. However, the whole story twists unpredictably from one sentence to the next, words jumping to a chaotic beat; it is this approach that keeps the reader on their toes.
The murder seems to be highly improbable but not entirely impossible; there are a few elements in the story that if examined more closely lend a feel of implausibility. An example of one such element is when the narrator describes the ‘wise precautions’ that he took in concealing the body, he dismembered the corpse but insists proudly that there was ‘–no stain of any kind–no blood-spot whatever.’ The likelihood of the narrator not spilling one drop of blood or catching it all with a ‘tub’ is akin to a one-in-a- million lottery draw! Nonetheless this actually works with the story and underlines the unreliability of the narrator and causes the reader to wonder if perhaps it’s all merely the imaginings of a madman.
The whole story seamlessly carries the reader from one conclusion to another; the style is condensed and yet somewhat cryptic.
The story is set within what seems like a small house, the surrounds are hardly mentioned except to describe his actions e.g. ‘I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.’ However the heart of the story is set within the narrator’s psyche and gives an almost overwhelming sense of claustrophobia as his ramblings lead us into ever decreasing circles. Its importance is undeniable as all the action takes place in one room cut off from the familiar world outside, in the darkness of the night. The presence of darkness or the lack of light is symbolic of the deep and impenetrable state of fearful dread which ensnares and entangles every fibre of the narrator’s being. It is in one way fantastical and in another deeply based in reality. There is nothing as undeniably mysterious as the human mind and soul yet every person on earth can lay a claim to having this depth of being which is part of the reality of everyday life. In fact most of the time we are unconscious of our depth.
Poe has kept the number of characters down to the bare minimum.
By narrowing down the input of any outside factors he has selectively controlled what the reader is focusing on most. The two main characters are the narrator/killer and the old man/victim. The narrator is a psychopath; he seems caught up in his own mind and strange fixations.
At the beginning of the story it is made fairly clear that he had been living with the old man. Neither the narrator’s name nor the reason he is staying with the old man is mentioned.
Definition of a Psychopath:
‘someone who shows a pathological degree of specific emotional instability without specific mental disorder; someone suffering from a behavioural disorder resulting in inability to form personal relationships and in indifference to or ignorance of his or her obligations to society, often manifested by antisocial behaviour such as acts of violence, sexual perversion etc…’ extract taken from ‘The Chambers Dictionary’
Definition of monomania:
Mental illness in which the mind is consumed by a single thought or idea; fanatical enthusiasm for a single subject or activity.
extract taken from ‘The Chambers Dictionary’
We don’t know what the narrator looks like but we become intimately knowledgeable about the dark corners of his mind. The old man is only described from the narrator’s point of view and even then the only part of
the old man that was described was his eye. Apart from that all we know is that he is old and weak. His whole motive seems to have stemmed from the appearance of the old man’s eye which is described as:
‘He had the eye of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it.’
What he is describing is probably just an eye clouded by cataract but with the oversensitive imagination that comes with being a monomaniac, the normal is swiftly turned into the abnormal. Their relationship at the start is one of friends or even family as the narrator states ‘I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.’ There is also obvious lack of normal human motivation, the narrator tells that he had no desire for his ‘gold’ and that the old man had never insulted him. Their relationship obviously changes during the story as the narrator becomes fixated with the ‘damned’ eye and tries to kill him. It is not certain that the old man ever knew who was trying to kill him.
The other characters in the story are the police officers; again they are not described except in their function. The police officers seem largely unaware of the rapid degeneration of the narrator’s composure and sanity and are described as ‘chatting pleasantly’ while the narrator is struggling to control his emotions. Their mild and calm behaviour offers a stark contrast to the narrator’s.
It is often said that one of Poe’s great subjects throughout his work was the ‘disintegration of personality’. This trend of focus is also apparent in ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ and is evident in the great amount of detail Poe allotted to it. There is not one specific quote that can be given to substantiate this because it is the story as a whole which analyses the progression of the psychotic illness of the narrator.
Another main theme that features strongly in a ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ is fear. It is undeniable that fear is always a constant presence in ‘Tell-Tale Heart’. The fear felt by the narrator and also the fear felt by his victim, the old man. It is not so much fear as an emotion that is present but fear as a concept. How powerful is fear? What can it make people do? Is it felt by all? These are some of the questions explored and answered in ‘Tell-Tale Heart’. Fear can be a tangible force, an atmosphere that can cling to people and makes them ‘lose control’ of their senses. It is like when a rabbit or a deer or some wild animal is ‘caught’ in the bright headlights of an oncoming car. They are trapped because their ordinary senses are frozen by their overwhelming fear of the unknown. They have not evolved to instinctively know how to act when faced with such a threat. If they are faced with a cat, fox or wolf they know how to get out of the situation, but a car? They are frozen because they don’t know what to do. It is the same with humans if faced with some supernatural or abnormal threat. Also interestingly when on the 8th night the narrator accidentally wakes the old man and begins hearing for the first time the beating heart he describes it as a ‘*hellish tattoo’ and exclaims that the ‘old man’s terror must have been extreme’. However it could be that the unearthly terror he is aware of the old man feeling is in fact his own. It seems that the fear is a dominant presence in the room as a projection of the narrators’ psyche.
*the use of the word hellish in this context is used to link the heart beat that the narrator is hearing to the supernatural and more importantly to Hell which historically is the place from where all evil comes.
The story is narrated in the first person to cut out any distance between the reader and the main character. It is to make the reader more aware of the emotions and thoughts which are running through the protagonist’s mind. This is incredibly important because the whole point of the story and the whole reason why it is interesting and appealing to the reader is that people want to understand how a killer is created.
The story is told in past tense because the narrator is explaining to himself as well as to the reader what has happened. He also seems to be trying to make sense of it. For example he appears at first unsure of why he killed the man, saying ‘I think it was the eye!’ as if it was a discovery new to him. Then ‘Yes, it was this!’ affirming it in his mind.
Poe has a very uncluttered style of writing; this is noticeable in the ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ in the way that there are only two main metaphors and virtually no similes. His use of metaphors is like the rest of his writing, very minimalistic and focused on enhancing the main idea. The first metaphor which the reader comes across in the ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ is the eye. The supposed reason for the murder is of course the old man’s eye; the narrator calls it an ‘eye of a vulture’ because of some imagined strong likeness. The interesting link between the ‘vulture’ eye and death is that there has long been the stereotype that vultures can foretell a death, the reason being that these natural scavengers are most often seen circling above the site of a lion, cheetah or leopard kill. They rarely hunt for themselves and prefer dead rotting meat to fresh for ease of digestion, but saying that, they are not picky.
The second most obvious metaphor is the beating heart which is the narrator’s most striking hallucination and symbolises a consciousness gone mad.
Since Poe was and is widely recognised as one of the greatest and most well known Gothic horror writers of our time it is hardly surprising that ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ is also of the Gothic horror genre. One of the characteristics which are considered important and essential to creating a ‘good’ Gothic horror was often missing in his work; the missing element was the classic Germanic Goth background such as mansions, tombs, churches, castles etc… Poe was heavily criticised for this omission, but responded by announcing:
‘I maintain that the terror is not of Germany, but of the soul,’
Further statements concluded that Poe was of the opinion that by exploring the source of terror, where it originates and functions; in the psyche, reveals far more art and finesse than the average Gothic horror.
The basics of the ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ –the relationship between the innocent victim and the killer- remain very much classic Gothic horror. However the plot of the story is far less superficially complex than the normal Gothic horror, for instance there is no revenge motive to do with family feuds, marriages or otherwise. There are also few characters and the setting is mundane and everyday, containing (as far as we are aware of) no hidden tombs or secret passage-ways. The narrator lives, like most people, in a house of little consequence. This style may not be classic Gothic horror but it is certainly typical of Edgar Allan Poe.
