How Does Edgar Allen Poe Create Tension in the Tell Tale Heart
The short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” was written by Edgar Allen Poe in the year 1843. He was born in America, January 1809 and died shortly after in October 1849. Poe spent most of his life in the United States army and only started writing literacy after his brother had died in the late 1830’s. Poe was one of the first American authors to be recognised in the genre gothic horror or simple horror. Poe’s most recurring themes were views of premature burial and reanimation of the dead in this case the beating of the old mans heart towards the end of the story. Poe’s believed inspiration for writing in this style was after his wife Virginia Clemm died shortly after their marriage. Gothic horror combines the elements of horror and romance into its own style, the style includes different aspects that normally re-occur in the genre; A darkened atmosphere and a rickety old house which gives home to a sinister villain that creates havoc for a certain victim of their choice. In this instance the narrator is the villain wrecked my madness and distress and the victim which is an old man who is wanted dead for his “Evil” “vulture” eye that torments the narrator .This end with the narrator killing the old man in cold blood which is a usual theme in gothic horrors.
An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing the reader and claiming that he is nervous but not mad. This automatically makes the reader feel a gradual build in tension and by unnaming the narrator it dehumanises him which makes the reader feel no human compassion towards. He says that he is going to tell a story in which he will defend his sanity yet confess to having killed an old man. His motivation was not desire for money, but rather a fear of the old man’s pale blue eye. Again, he states that he is not crazy because his calm and fastidious actions, though villainous, are not those of a madman. Every night, he went to the old man’s rom and secretly observed the man sleeping. In the morning, he would
An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing the reader and claiming that he is nervous but not mad. This automatically makes the reader feel a gradual build in tension and by unnaming the narrator it dehumanises him which makes the reader feel no human compassion towards. He says that he is going to tell a story in which he will defend his sanity yet confess to having killed an old man. His motivation was not desire for money, but rather a fear of the old man’s pale blue eye. Again, he states that he is not crazy because his calm and fastidious actions, though villainous, are not those of a madman. Every night, he went to the old man’s rom and secretly observed the man sleeping. In the morning, he would