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Symbolism In The Tell Tale Heart

1440 Words6 Pages

Anosha Hussain

An exemplary message everyone should take in, no matter the person, is that when committing a discourteous act, guilt could end up as a result, as guilt is to the spirit what pain is to the body. In the story, “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator, considered as a madman by some, deviously takes out his plan of murdering an innocent old man for his “vulture eye”. When the narrator 's plan didn 't go as he wanted it to, he revoltingly crushed the old man, whose heart was vigorously pounding with fear, with a bed until he couldn 't breathe. The dreadful pounding of the heart later appeared in the narrator 's thoughts as a form of guilt, which forced him to go psychotic. The overall mood determined by the text, darkness and madness, was influenced by several elements to help further advance it. Hence, Edgar Allan Poe focused on multiple craft moves, 1st person narrator, symbolism, and description to build a variety of moods.

Right from the start, the author uses the craft move, 1st person narrator, to build an overall mood of darkness and mischievousness. In the text the narrator utters, “True!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them.” This quote has an immediate effect on the readers, as it uses the em dash. The em dash indicates a break in the madman 's thoughts and begins to set an overall tone of darkness. Additionally,

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