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Summary Tell Tale Heart Analysis
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These questions shown + answered provides a deeper understanding of "The Tell Tale Heart" and the reasoning for Poe's craft.
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Assignment Tell-tale Heart
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English IIIVoices from the American Edge : "The Tell-Tale Heart"
Tone Analysis
20 Points
Name: Maya Bradford
Part One: Remember and Understand
1. Provide a short summary of what happens in the story.
An unnamed narrator confesses that he has murdered an old man, apparently because of the old man’s
weird and “Evil eye” which drove the narrator to kill him. He then describes how he crept into the old
man’s bedroom while he slept and stabbed him, dragging the body away and dismembering it. He goes
to some lengths to cover up all trace of the murder, he even caught his victim’s blood in a tub, so that
none was spilt anywhere, and then he takes up three of the floorboards of the chamber, and conceals his
victim’s body underneath. But no sooner has he concealed the body than there’s a knock at the door: it’s
the police, having been called out by a neighbor who heard a scream during the night. The narrator lets
the police officers in to search the premises, and tells them a lie about the old man being away in the
country. He keeps his calm while showing them around, until they go and sit down in the room below
which the victim’s body is held. The narrator and the police officers talk, but gradually the narrator
begins to hear a ringing in his ears, a noise that becomes louder and more defined. He believes that it is
the beating of the dead man’s heart, taunting him from beyond the grave. Eventually, he can’t stand it
any more, and tells the police to tear up the floorboards, the sound of the old man’s beating heart
driving him to confess his crime.
2. In your opinion, are the narrator's intentions good or bad? What evidence in the story supports your
answer?
I think the narrator's intentions were good but they were shadowed by his mental health. This is
supported by how nervous he is when he says he is “very dreadfully nervous “. One can tell that he is
very paranoid and not doing well mentally and physically. Mentally, he can't tell what is real and what
isn't. He believes his sickness has increased his hearing abilities, shown in the part of the story where he
believes he can hear the heart of the old man beating under the floor. In reality, I think it was just his
heartbeat due to the fact that he was very paranoid.
Part Two: Apply
1. Fill out the chart below to better understand the persona of the narrator.
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