Examples Of Literary Conventions In The Tell Tale Heart

A literary convention is a specific pattern like a repetition of a word or phrase. Throughout The Tell Tale Heart the author, Poe, uses a repetition convention. For example, in the very first sentence Poe writes, “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. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” (187). I think that this shows that he is analyzing the idea that he could possibly be mad. Throughout the story and even after the narrator kills the old man, he still believes he is not mad. He wonders how he could be, and