Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

 

             Poe's work has made a huge impact on American and International literature. Poe, as he does with many of his stories, fills this story with suspense and thrills. Poe's sense of mood and tone in his writing help create a thrilling, strange, and mysterious atmosphere, which leads to the theme (Chua, 297). .
             The mood of the story is set by the descriptions and events in the story. John Chua, from the reference book Short Stories for Students, explains how in many of Poe's stories, including The Tell-Tale Heart, he uses the concept of a nemesis appearing as a doppelganger, which basically is a double (233). In doing this, Poe really shows how strange his characters can get, and it helps contribute to the mysterious atmosphere. In so many of Poe's stories, he brings up the protagonist fighting a counterpart many times, which Chua believes is an indication of Poe's attempt to work out his own inner conflicts and psychological struggles. This can relate to mood in that the readers are experiencing a taste of his own life.
             In a critic written by Martha Womack, she explains how the narrator's "nervousness" is a frequently used literary device of Poe to establish tone through heightened states of consciousness (Womack, Poedecoder). Womack also speculates that the narrator either has some sort of phobia towards the vulture like eye of the old man, or that that narrator is referring to the origins of Greece and Rome. The "evil eye", dates back to ancient times, and it centers around the idea that those who possess the evil eye have the power to harm people or their possessions simply by looking at them (Womack, Poedecoder). Womack also describes how the ancient people of their time dealt with people with the "evil eye", and she explained in extreme circumstances, the eye (and person) must be destroyed. Womack also describes Poe's writing style this way: "Poe was known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre.


Essays Related to "The Tell-Tale Heart"