Chisom Onwuka Essays - Fiction, Short Stories, Literature

Chisom Onwuka Professor Rose 1302 19 July 2013 Uncover The Tell-Tale Heart Insight into one of Poe's most amazing short stories Contrasting imagery in "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe represents an ingenious narration on his behalf. Poe utilizes his words to fashion out the true image of madness in the behavior of the narrator. In order for readers to better understand the psyche of the narrator, Poe effectively displays a milieu of light and dark imagery and dramatic language to thereby expose the disease which plagues the storyteller. Poe introduces the character as being "dreadfully nervous," (Poe 450) which gives credible evidence about the insanity of the narrator as he himself claims that "the disease had sharpened his senses" (Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart) even though he stands in still darkness. Continuously, in the story the narrator informs the reader about his eagerness to end the life of the old man. He describes how meticulous and in-depth he went in planning his master's death. He utilizes words such as "Heaven, Hell, lantern, crevice, dreadful silence, and many others". He also employs contrasting imagery as a modem to allow readers to interpret the narrator's actual thoughts instead of the unreliable reasons he gives. The narrator travels in darkness or "at midnight" (Poe 450) which allows the readers to assume his deeds are not of good nature and hold evil intent. This idea of night being the time of evil was Poe's most valuable asset in " The Tell-Tale Heart " and many other stories because of the strange, devious motives described by the narrator. The readers might also notice that in " The Tell-Tale Heart" Poe uses words repetitively to add more emphasis and emotion to the situations. Often he says "very very" (Poe 451) which helps the narrator better process information when describing events. Also, repetition emphasizes the assumed evil nature of the narrator for it symbols the "acuteness of his senses" which means he holds a very sensitive feeling to his surroundings and can understand situations deeper than others. Ironically, in the story " The Tell-Tale Heart" , the feelings of sensitivity is what caused his annoyance towards his master thereby leading the narra tor to take his master life. Additionally, Poe does not just restate adjectives or descriptive words but he also repeats sentence structures for a more dramatic effort so readers may feel the same adrenaline action held by the narrator. Sentences such as "true!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am" "I moved it slowly- very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep.." "And now- again! - hark! Louder! Louder! Louder! Louder!" The sentence structure of this story seems to resemble a winding mirror which pulls the reader in a suspenseful journey to understand or at least glimpse at the thought process and imagination of a psychotic man. Poe ingeniously constructed the narrator so as for the readers to experience something out of the ordinary. Many questions arise in this story by readers who wish to fully understand his work; questions such as is the narrator male or female, shall we ever know the true reason why the three mysterious police officers continuously ignored the insane caretaker, and why the story was only written from one point of view. These questions once again lead to the economic planning of Poe, for he created this story for open interpretation of why the man acted as he did. The plague which the narrator faced was very obvious for he stated by fact that we will all presume that he is mad and his actions and behaviors will prove it. Work Cited Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tale Heart. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011, 2010, 2007. Print