The Tell Tale Heart By: Edgar Allen Poe

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The Tell Tale HeartBy Edgar Allen Poe

• Cuppy Grogan Jenna Firner

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Table of Contents

• Summary
• Characters
• Setting
• Plot
• Themes and symbols
• Climax and Resolution
• Discussion questions

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The story

• The story starts out with an unnamed narrator who
  claims he is not insane but that he is a nervous
  wreck.
• For the past 7 days, the narrator has gone into
  an old mans room and has watched the man sleep.
  The narrator does so because he fears the pale
  blue eye of the old man.
• On the eighth night of the narrator spying on the
  old man, the old man wakes up and screams. The
  narrator continues to keep still as he watches
  the old man sitting up in bed, terrified.
• After a while of watching the old man, who was
  still sitting up in bed, the narrator begins to
  hear a faint thumping noise. The noise of the
  old mans heartbeat. The narrator goes insane, as
  the heartbeat gets louder and louder.
• Worried that the neighbors may hear the loud
  thumping of the heartbeat, the narrator kills the
  man by throwing the bed on top of the man, and
  killing him.

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• As the clock struck four, he took the body of the
  old man, and tore and cut it apart. He then took
  those body parts and stuck them beneath the floor
  boards of the mans room.
• The neighbors had heard a faint scream come from
  the house and called the police. The narrator
  willingly lets the police search the house. The
  narrator tries to keep his composure until all of
  the sudden he begins to hear the heartbeat again.
  He goes insane, believing that the police can
  hear it as well.
• He admits that he has killed the man, and tell
  the police to look under the floorboards.

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Characters

• Unknown narrator The narrator of the story who
  is the murder of the old man. The only motive he
  has to kill the old man is because of his pale
  blue eyes. He tries to deny how insane he is, but
  we soon find out that there is no other word to
  describe him.
• The old man The narrators murder victim. He
  is a harmless man who has done nothing wrong. He
  has one blue eye the narrator calls his evil eye

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Setting

• Setting
• The story opens in an unknown place where the
  narrator tells readers that he is not mad.
• The story is set in a house occupied by the
  narrator and an old man.
• The story takes place over eight days.

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Plot

• A man claims he is not insane
• He stalks the old man with the blue eye
• He kills the man believing that the neighbors can
  hear his terrified heartbeat after discovering
  the narrator was watching him sleep
• The police arrive and the man tries to act as if
  nothing is wrong
• He believes that he hears a heartbeat and panics
• He then confesses to murdering the man

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Themes and Symbols

• Themes
• Sanity and Insanity
• The narrator claims his sanity when in the end he
  is clearly the opposite
• Fear of discovery can bring about discovery
  (guilt and innocence)
• At the end of the story, the narrator begins to
  crack under the pressure of a police
  investigation, hearing the sound of the murdered
  man's beating heart, and tells the police where
  he hid the body.   
• The evil within is worse than the evil outside a
  person
• The old man has a hideous eye so outwardly he is
  ugly but he is otherwise a harmless person.
• The narrator is inwardly ugly and crazy, he
  executes murdering the old man, outwardly he
  tries to appear normal

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• Symbols
• Old mans blue eyes- The narrator feels that the
  man is always looking at him with his evil eye
  and goes to the harsh extent of killing the man
  because of it.
• The heartbeat- the sound of his pounding heart
  drives the narrator mad and causes him to confess
  thinking he heard the old mans heart
• His claim to sanity- ironically he claims he is
  sane when he is in fact insane because he says he
  is sane

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Climax and Resolution

• Climax- When the narrator kills the old man
• Resolution- he goes insane from the beat of his
  own heart and confesses to the murder

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Questions

• Why does the narrator say he isnt crazy?
• True! nervous very, very dreadfully nervous I
  had been and am, but why will you say that I am
  mad?
• Did he stalk the man because he originally
  planned to kill him, or was it unplanned?
• Why does the subtle sound of a heartbeat grab his
  attention rather than the old mans screams?
• Why did he feel the need to cut him up?
• Does this mirror Poes life in anyway?

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The End!