In the first paragraph the writer is diving us an introduction to the story. Tension is suggested straight away in the narrator’s opening sentence, in which he says “True! Nervous- very, dreadfully nervous. I have been and I am”. Suspense keeps building up as the writer tells the story by talking to the reader directly. “But why will you say that I am mad?” suspense in this story plays a very important part. For instance, if we look back at the first paragraph, it shows the slowing down the time and speeding up the time, builds up the suspense in the story. Also, using the evil words like ‘Hell’ makes you think something bad is going to happen.
Then he starts talking us through how he loved the old man and telling us about the old man’s eye describing it as ‘vulture’, makes it look horrible. The suspense still plays its part when he gives us a motive by saying “whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold”. Also, the suspense is being built up by noises and the atmosphere before and after the character committed the crime. The writer keeps us waiting by using the sound of the heart, he takes us through the story with expectations of what is going to happen, by saying “I moved it slowly- very, very slowly”. This is where the author keeps the suspense up.
“Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door”, the writer creates expectations of what is going to happen next. So on the eighth night he kills the old man. There is also a switch of movement, from slow to fast, to show how the old man was killed: “a watches minute hand moved more quickly than did mine”. This is to emphasize how slowly the main character was moving. Then we are told how the time was going very slowly and the main character says that he stood still for an hour and “did not move a muscle”. Then he tells us how fast he moved by saying “in an instant I dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him”. Poe uses this phrase to describe the speed of the main character’s actions.
After killing the old man, the main character “dismembered of the corpse; cut off the head, and the arms, and legs”. This tells us how crazy he was, and it makes us- the readers, want to find out what is going to happen to this mad man. Is he going to face justice?
When the murderer tells us that the police came to check about the shriek heard the night before, he’s trying to convince us by saying “for what had I now to fear?”- A question to the reader directly. By asking us that question the author makes us go through the story and see what he told the police. He satisfied the police by taking them around the house. The writer explains that he was in no danger what so ever, by saying “my manner had convinced them”. Then we have the murderer saying: “my head ached and I fancied a ringing in my ears”. This keeps us inside the story, to find out more.
Poe keeps suspense in the story by noises: “it grew louder- louder- louder”. These words tell the reader that something is going to happen, but we don’t know what, exactly. So we have to keep reading and find out. Then by shouting the word “Villains” we expect him to give him self up.