The elements indicating the gothic features in the story are the thrillers, mystery, and horror. These three elements are the devices that represent the significance of the gothic elements in the story. In “The Tell Tale Heart”, there are Gothic style shown by the atmosphere. The atmosphere is very mysterious. The characters also add a mysterious and eerie feeling. Also the time in which this was written which is midnight adds a scary and eerie feeling. Midnight in general is a time of day in which everything is scarier. Thriller comes into at the beginning of the story. It starts at the scene when the narrator comes to the old man’s room and peeks inside. Poe writes in the third paragraph, “And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it—oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head.” The atmosphere of this situation is quite thrilling, and the language makes it even more. By repeating words, such as “night” and “closed”, and also using exclamation marks, Poe creates tension.
The old man’s eye contributes to the mystery in this short story. Poe describes the old man’s eyes by stating that, “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.” The old man’s eye is the object of mystery because the readers do not know why his eyes look like a vultures eye. This shows the hatred towards the old man because of his eye he wants to kill him. the eye relates directly to the reason of the murder showing a mysterious affect towards the reader. Horror elements which is in the whole short story. From the beginning, horror starts to develop in the same way thriller and mystery is