Jacob also uses characters attitudes and dialogue to create suspense, which brings a sense of effect to the story. For example, Mrs white suddenly shouts “The paw!.. The monkey’s paw!”. This immediately builds up pace and suspense to the story as the reader doesn’t know what has caused Mrs White’s uproar. This all brings an element of horror to the story.
In the first paragraph of ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ ; “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” Mentioning hell makes it suspenseful, and hooks the audience. Then, as he stalks the old man, he opened his lantern” cautiously oh, so cautiously cautiously (for the hinges creaked)”. The audience can get a sense of complete silence, and how loud that creaking would be; this mention of sound here just intensifies the suspense. Then, during the murder, it is pitch black, so sound is the only clue we have to what is going on. The narrator describes the old man's heart beating faster and faster, which, like a soundtrack for a movie, sets the pace and mood for the horrific murder.
And then, the narrator hearing the old man's heart beating beneath the floorboards that leads to his confession. The sound drives the man insane, he rants, raves, makes noise to cover it up, but to no help: “I felt that I must scream or die! and now again! hark! louder! louder! louder! Louder” In this intense last paragraph, the heartbeat is what causes the suspense and tension ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ is a great example of using sound to create the suspense and horror to the story.
In the language of ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ , the writer uses adverbs to add
suspense to the story: “…breathlessly”. This word describes Mrs
White, and gives us a good view in mind of how she is feeling. It creates suspense because it shows us how much Mrs White is worried and that she really feels that something terrible had happened to her son.
The writer also uses short sentences in his story that create tension in the reader: ‘What is it?’, ‘Is he hurt’ . These short sentences are a result of Mrs White’s anxiety and worry about her son. We as readers also feel anxious because of these short sentences that speed up the stories pace. We also expect that something bad will happen and the characters are the one’s with their anxious action’s that give us this feeling.
Another technique in language is the deliberate choice of words that
create an atmosphere in the reader’s mind: “…throwing pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls,”. This sentence describe the motions that Mr White’s candle shown. The writer created suspense by creating a very clear image in the reader’s mind of how scary these shadows are and of how dark it is in there. He
also uses personification by giving the shadows a pulse and this brings elements of horror into the story because we feel as if these shadows are going to attack Mr White.
In the ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ The story begins in the middle of an event. This is obvious because the story begins with a conversation that's already begun. The narrator is talking to someone else another person who is not identified.
Poe has written this story in 1st person narrative, by doing this Poe provides us with insight into the character’s motivation in committing murder as well as his purpose in relating it to the reader. This intensifies the dramatic impact of ‘The Tell Tale Heart’.
Poe uses repetition to create nervousness. Example - “Louder, louder, louder!” “How stealthily, stealthily.” The language is very important for keeping the atmosphere alive and making sure the reader stays intrigued, as a horror story that focuses on the subject of insanity and murder.
Throughout the story Poe uses figures of speech to create a better atmosphere such as; imagery from the very start to describe the mans eye and set up the threatening atmosphere of the story, example; “All a dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones.” Personification an example of this is; “Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim” meaning death is a person. Poe also uses alliteration throughout the story, and example of this is “the beating of his hideous heart!”
In ‘The Monkey's Paw’ the irony, between what the Whites think will happen and what actually happens, is that the monkey's paw, an object of their desires to have wishes fulfilled, becomes a curse rather than a blessing.
This ironic outcome is foreshadowed in the words of Sergeant Major Morris, a guest of the Whites who is nervous when he tells them of his possession of the monkey's paw which was passed on to him. For instance, he admits to the paw's giving of three wishes,
but his face whitens and his teeth tap against the glass from which he drinks; then, he replies to the query as to what the third wish was, “I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That's how I got the paw.” However, he urges the Whites not to keep the paw, but to “let it burn.”
,The greed of the Whites replaces the fear of the magic of the paw. They make a wish for a grand sum of money, a wish they receive; however, ironically, Mr. and Mrs. White lose their son Herbert in the fulfilment of the wish. The two hundred pounds is the amount of payment due on the life insurance policy for Herbert, who is killed in an accident at work. In another dramatic ironic twist, the lonely parents wish for their son back, but he returns a mangled, hideous creature; so, Mr. White must wish him dead to spare Herbert and his wife the agony of his living a tortured life.
In ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ The most common form of literary irony is situational irony however, Poe uses different types of irony, Verbal and dramatic. An example of Verbal is: he empathizes the old man, while hatching plan to kill him.
An example of dramatic is: the old man thinks a robber is attacking him but it is really the narrator.
The narrator shows, calmly at first how he became insane, even though he is actually trying to show to us that he is not insane, and finishes his story in a state of anxiety.
The narrator is obsessed with the old man's eye which he fears, but it is the sound of the old man's heart that does the narrator in. There is another irony here: is it the old man's heart he is hearing or is it the narrator's own anxious heart beating strongly from guilt that he is hearing and mistaking for the old man's heart? And remember, earlier he states that he has an over acute sense of hearing.
