Tell Tale Heart

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Tell Tale Heart

• By Edgar Allan Poe

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Reading Guide Questions

• 1. How does the first sentence create suspense?
• 2. Poe talks about TIME throughout the story
• Find three quotations to do with TIME going
  slowly in the story.
• Find two quotations to do with TIME going fast
  within the story.
• 3. Repetition
• Poe repeats words a great deal in the story
  i.e. "Very, very slowly".
• Write down 3 examples of repetition and
  explain why Poe repeats words and phrases.

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Reading Guide Questions

• 4. Descriptive Language Poe describes everything
  in great detail so
• that the reader can imagine the story like a
  film. He uses lots of
• imagery.
• List some of the evil words that he uses what
  effect do they have
• in the story and on the reader?
• How does he make the "eye" sound disgusting?
• How does he make the death sound disgusting?
• 5. The story is written in first person narrative
  by the main character.
• List 3 quotations where the main character
  directly refers to the
• reader. Why does Poe do this?
• Why does Poe have the murderer tell the story?

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Reading Guide Questions

• 6. Find examples of the following literary
  devices in The Tell Tale Heart
• a. Simile-a comparison using like or as.
• b. personification-giving human
  characteristics or actions to something that is
  NOT human.
• c. alliteration consonant sounds that
  repeat themselves in a line of prose or poetry.
• d. Irony - is the contrast between what is
  expected or what appears to be and what actually
  is.

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Literary Devices

• Personificaton  Example Death in approaching
  him had stalked with his black shadow before him
  and enveloped the victim. Here, Death is a
  person.
• Simile  Examples So I opened ityou cannot
  imagine how stealthily, stealthilyuntil at
  length a single dim ray like the thread of the
  spider shot out from the crevice and fell upon
  the vulture eye. The simile is the comparsion of
  the ray to the thread of the spider with the use
  of the word like.  It increased my fury as the
  beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into
  courage. The simile is the comparison of the
  heartbeat to a drumbeat.   His room was as
  black as pitch with the thick darkness. . . .
  The simile is the comparison of the darkness to
  pitch.
• Alliteration  Hearken! and observe how healthily,
  how calmly, I can tell you the whole story. 
  Meanwhile, the hellish tattoo of the heart
  increased. 
• Example - It is the beating of his hideous
  heart! 
• Irony  I was never kinder to the old man than
  during the whole week before I killed him.