The Tell-Tale Heart Literary Analysis

The short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” was written by Edgar Allen Poe and was published in January of 1843. The setting of this story is a house. Only a few details are given about this old house; the old man keeps the shutters tightly locked, there are neighbors close enough to hear a scream and the police seem to arrive quickly after the narrator kills the old man, so the assumption might be made that he lives close to town. The old man’s room is discussed but never described as more than dark. There are two major characters in this story; the Narrator and the Old Man. The Narrator is never described as male or female and they appear to be paranoid and mentally ill. The difference between “real” and “not real” does not exist to this
The character of the Old Man is only introduced through the Narrators perspective, he has money, he has a blue eye which can lead to the assumption that he had damaged the eye at one point and he appears to be a trusting person. The plot of this story begins with the Narrator presents the readers with his plan to kill the Old Man to stop the eye from looking at him, but assures the readers he is not insane. The Narrator enters the Old Man’s house every night for one week, ready to kill him, but he cannot because the man is sleeping and the Narrator cannot see the eye and the eye is the problem. In order for the Narrator to kill the Old Man, the Old Man has to make up and open his eye. Eventually, the man wakes up and opens his eye and the Narrator kills him, cuts up his body and puts it under the floor boards. The neighbor calls the police when she hears a scream. When the police arrive, the Narrator is very calm and collected, he shows them around the house and tells them the Old Man is out of town. When they reach the bedroom, the Narrator begins to hear a noise than begins to bet increasingly louder. The sound is described as many different ways but the Narrators concludes that it is the Old Man’s heart beating from under