Mood In Tell Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe was a very dark writer who predominately wrote mystery. In the short-story, “Tell-Tale heart he used the literary device of setting to create a dark, threatening tone by using man-made geography, mood and atmosphere, time of day, elapsed time and Poe used locale to tie all the elements together Edgar Allan Poe used man-made geography. One way he uses this is in (541, 2). The narrator hid the body under the wooden planks. Wood planks reverberate every time you step on them, so when the mad narrator murdered the old man, he could thought he could hear and feel the heartbeat echo under the floorboard. Another example of Edgar Allan Poe using man-made geography was when the narrator threw the hefty bed on top of the old man eventually

The author used lighting to influence character actions such as in (540, 2), when he describes the room as black. Edgar Allan Poe makes the old man’s room seem extremely inky with a lantern covered so none other than a thread of light the size of a spiders silk was shone out. This makes the room extremely eerie, with the narrator only being able to see the old man’s eye; and the old man seeing nothing. This made the room feel lonely and suspicious. The author also gave us a sense of fear in (539, 2) when the old man heard the narrator and then groaned in mortal terror. The old man was terrified thinking that something was inside the room and praying that it was only wind in the chimney or a mouse squeal. Mood and atmosphere was enhanced by Poe’s use of time of

Night created a sense of fear because it is difficult to see and portrayed a feeling that someone or something was watching the old. He was being watched. If the story had been set during day time the old man could have seen the mad man and would have probably called the police. Furthermore the mad man would have been arrested without the plot development of the conclusion. In (538, 3), the mad man stated, “Every morning when day broke, I went boldly to his chamber, and spoke courageously to him calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night.” Since day lacked purpose to the mad man, the author used it as the time when the narrator spent