Assignment

Assignment



Assignment

The Tell-Tale-Heart

Great American author and poet of the nineteenth century, Edgar Allan Poe is considered one of the greatest figures of horror and the bizarre. He was both loved and hated by his contemporaries and the generations that followed, both for his work or his lifestyle. Some critics believe that Poe was suffering from insanity or alcoholism; other authors treat the "vulgar", while some would describe as logical, author often based on psychology and science to write his stories or literary genius. Many mysteries hover around his life, his inspiration and even the circumstances of his death. No wonder too much about the omnipresence of death in most of his stories when we know that Poe lost his parents very young, followed by his wife who died at the age of 24.

Point of View

It seems easy to understand the reasons for the choice of the author. Not only are the texts of a rich literary, but his writing style and her story is unique. The Tell-Tale Heart is not only one of the best known of Poe, but just like The Black Cat, it addresses the theme of madness so very strange. Indeed, the narrator of these two new desperately trying to convince the reader that he is not mad, but gradually as the story advances, it becomes clear that this narrator is never normal. The reader has the impression of being in the mind of a narrator completely incoherent plagued by murderous madness. “Now this is the point. You imagine me crazy. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded - with what caution! -- With what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work! I was never kinder to the old during the week before killing him.”

The passage chosen from Tell-Tale Heart is to be at the end of the story, the climax of the story. In the early days of the passage, the narrator has just committed his crime, but still looks calm. Even when police come to search his home, he is polite and seems to be totally sure of the success of his plan (or attempts to persuade them). But as time progresses, he begins to doubt and to be panic. He seems to hear the heart of his victim who is dead and yet hidden under the floor boards, and that makes it crazy. He eventually confessed his crime to the police, preferring to surrender rather than having to bear to hear the heart that keeps beating louder and louder. He is convinced that everyone can hear it, even the police, but they make fun of him by pretending not to hear. Even at the present moment (the moment of narration), the narrator seems to still hear that heart, and tries to listen to the reader. It becomes obvious to the reader that the pulsations are heard the narrator's own heart and not from the heart of his ...