Theme Of Suspense In The Tell-Tale Heart

Nong, Amy

Prof. Buscher

Section:4499

9/21/14
Essay 1: “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Poe in “The Tall-Tale Heart” is careful of his choice of words, since both his word choice and point of view are able to create a huge sense of suspense to drive the story. Poe tells the story in the perspective of a mad man/ murderer. In the beginning of the story the Murderer tell us “True!-- nervous – very,very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?.” (Poe 387) The very reason why this sentence being in first person creates tension is because you can feel the emotion from how it 's written, it seems paranoid or spoken in a shaken voice which usually mean something has happened. Through out the story the audiences will feel as if they were there, unfolding the event frame by frame because of the point of view in this story. “For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in bed, listening;--just as I have done, night after night,...”(Poe 388) In the following example his word choices are describe in such vivid detail that you can picture it in your mind and sense the suspense since assuming that its pitch black in that room both the narrator and the old-man are both waiting and listening for a movement. Also since it 's in first point of view you read the story as if you were the murder yourself which why point of view drives the story.
The narrator uses a lot of repetition (in a first person