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How Does Poe Create Suspense In The Tell Tale Heart

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Suspense by Edgar Allen Poe Suspense is a writing style that authors use to make it so a reader is ahead of the characters in the story. Edgar Allen Poe profoundly used this technique in his story “Tell Tale Heart”. The narrator is psychotic and is particularly tormented by an old man’s ‘evil’ glass eye. He was willing to do close to anything to be rid of the eye, including murder. Through the entire story, Poe had it so the reader always knew something was going to happen, but constantly question when and what. “The Tell Tale Heart” continually makes the reader think and sparks a certain interest. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, there are multiple instances of suspense. One part with a lot is when the narrator is going to actually kill the …show more content…

After completely unhinging and having a mental breakdown, he did tell the police officers about what he did. The story ended with the narrator saying "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! –tear up the planks! –here, here! –it is the beating of his hideous heart!" (Poe 7) This event added suspense because the story ended with the reader being unaware of what happened afterwards. There was no way to know how the cops reacted to finding this out or what the repercussions were. Suspense was profound in “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. Throughout the entirety of the book, he left the reader with multiple questions. It is a story completely based off of not knowing exactly what will happen next. but knowing something will happen. Whether it had been in the beginning when one could have been asking themselves what makes him so crazy, or at the end when one could have been asking themselves what happened after the cops were made aware of the situation, suspense was always there. To conclude, in “The Tell Tale Heart”, Poe uses the technique of suspense

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