How Does Edgar Allan Poe Create Suspense

“The Tell-tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

One of the main characteristics that mark every story that Poe writes is how he can not only create suspense but also how he can maintain that same intensity of suspense for the entire length of the story. In the case of “The Tell-tale Heart,” Poe creates that feeling of uncertainty since the first line. The reason for this is that although the story starts by saying: “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 (Poe)” which gives the reader a sense of what has happened and how the story is going to end. Just like in the case of the film “Black Hawk Down,” whereas the title says, the viewer already knows what has happened, but he does not how it happened.
In the case of “The Tell-tale Heart,” the police were responding to the call of a concerned neighbor about noises coming from the property. Poe wants the reader to realize that the real power that those policemen have is based on the pathologies that the mind can create and hold over an individual. The best example of this is at the end of the story, where the main character confesses to the crime because he thought that the policemen were hearing the heartbeat of the old man. What this makes us believe is that the role that the agents play is no more than a spectator role. They just go to the crime scene to make him betray himself without forcing him to do