The Tell-Tale Heart Thesis

Poe uses irony in his stories to demonstrate how fear can distort the mind and what the result of that fear looks like. In Poe’s story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” Prince Prospero locks himself and other wealthy people up in his castle, leaving only the castle to live in: “They resolved to leave any means of ingress or egress…” (57). This is ironic because by locking himself and other wealthy people up in his castle, he secured his death and the death of everyone else he lives with. Prince Prospero’s fear of Death leads him to make these decisions. In the same way, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is ironic in that the old man bars his windows and makes his bedroom dark because of his fear of death, however, death is already inside.

Humans react to their surroundings, thus shaping their own behaviors and thought processes. “Bullet” by Kim Church examines the relationships between the narrator and two other men, as well as the role of bullets in her encounters with them. The first man, Hobart, is her husband who displays abusive tendencies, while the second, the man who robbed her store, uses violence in a very different way. Hobart prefers the use of brute force to achieve the narrator’s submission, but the robber gains victory through mental manipulation. However, in her encounters with both men, the narrator fixates on the object that they both possess rather than their actions.

Gilman-Perkins utilizes exaggeration in this instance, as such a wallpaper would certainly not be characterized as “torturing” by a “normal mind”, serving to convey the protagonist’s abnormal state of mind by highlighting the disparity between her thought patterns and those which the reader would likely have after having read the description of the object. Here the author uses a metaphor to characterize the effects of the wallpaper upon the narrator’s mind by emphasizing her obsession with and the detriment caused to her sanity by the wallpaper’s enigmatic patterns. It may also be worth noting that the wallpaper is personified, possibly in reference to her subsequent conclusion that there is a woman imprisoned in it.

“The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Monkeys Paw” are two short stories that have a cause and effect with events that leave the reader in a state of suspense. In all walks of life, we cause, deal with, and are involved in situations that deal with cause and effect. Our reactions to situations greatly affect the outcome. In stories, whether they are fantasy or non-fiction, characters are also faced with the consequences of their actions. The characters in “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Monkeys Paw” have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Tell-Tale Heart is a book consisting on the narrator. The narrator had seen an old man that had a weird eye. The narrator did not like his eye the it looked at the narrator. So at the end of the story the narrator killed the poor old man. Dont you understand your child is reading violent books in middle school.

We hear about unbelievable murders in the news quite frequently. Some of them are mentally insane and get let off because, “It’s not their fault.” Or, “They were born like that”. The narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart was insane before he murdered the old man. But was he responsible for his actions?

“The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” are two short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe that parallel his actual feelings and flaws in life. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” the protagonist is under the influence of alcohol dependency, which symbolizes his drinking problem in his life, and the protagonist is caught committing murder, symbolizing death in his life. The protagonist mentioned those flaws and sorrows because he wants readers to understand why he wrote those stories. Therefore, Edgar Allan Poe’s protagonists in his stories share his flaws. His habitual intoxication led to his dark writing with murder’s consequences; thus reflecting the inner working of Poe’s murderous mind.

In this assignment I will be comparing and contrasting The Tell Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allen Poe and The Cold Embrace written by Mary E. Braddon. These two horror stories share similarities, however they also have their differences. One of the main differences in these stories is the technique the author chooses to open the story, which creates a certain tone for the two stories. In our case, both stories open with the main character giving a message to the reader of their life.

The narrator from “Tell Tale Heart” is insane because he literally stalks a man for seven nights. On the last night, he was done stalking. He finally made his move. He wanted to get rid of an old man who he stayed with majority of his life.

1. (TS) In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, a nameless man murders an innocent friend due to internal and external motivations. 2. (Context + CD)