The Tell-Tale Heart Foreshadowing

Edgar Allen Poe is a well-known poet and author, who was born on January 19, 1809. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe quickly learned the hardships of life, as he was born into poverty and later became orphaned. His father abandoned him at a very young age and following, his mother died of tuberculosis. Poe was moved to a foster home with John and Frances Allen, which with whom he lived with for most of his childhood. Though was never adopted by them, he had a close connection with them, especially his with foster mother that he loved immensely. His foster father on the other hand, did not get along with him because Poe did not like how John treated women, including his wife, Frances. Frances died while Poe was a young adult and John was able to abandon him and send him away to college, where he inherited

The first one that instantly came to mind was death. It was easy to catch on to what the narrator was going to do to the old man, especially in the second paragraph when he is talking about the old man’s eye and says, “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees – very gradually – I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” That phrase is a literary device called foreshadowing, which allows the reader of the short story to connect the dots and imagine what will happen by the end of the story. As the story continues, the narrator tells the readers how he will kill the old man. For seven nights in a row, the narrator quietly creeps into the old man’s chamber and watches him, never ceasing to look for that “eye of a vulture”. Finally, on the eighth day the narrator does the dirty-deed and ruthlessly murders the old man. As the reader, it was straightforward that the old man was horrified, particularly when he let out that chilled groan, when it came time for his death. This is one of the scenes that conclusively symbolizes one of the main themes: