The Tell-Tale Heart - A Literary Analysis
The Tell-Tale Heart - A Literary Analysis
The Tell-Tale Heart - A Literary Analysis
GRADUATE SCHOOL
TACLOBAN CITY
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SUBMITTED BY:
CHARMAINE B. BRAMIDA
M.E. Student
SUBMITTED TO:
Professor
March 2019
THE\ MADMAN:
A LITERARY ANALYSIS
Introduction
This paper examines one of Poe’s most famous short stories, The Tell-Tale Heart, through a
psychoanalytical literary lens. This analysis also discusses its gothic elements, imagery, and
other devices, which ultimately try to give the readers a unique perspective of the most
important element in the story: the narrator.
Like some of Poe’s works (The Black Cat and The Cask of Amontillado), The Tell-Tale
Heart is a bleak and dark exposition of an unknown character’s successful attempt at murder
and their eventual delirious confession from the torment of guilt. The story-teller’s motiveless
actions rouse one’s curiosity of their sanity as well as their relationship with the old man. It
attempts to further enlighten readers of certain mental illnesses characterized by the unnamed
narrator. Some parts of this paper will also give a comparative account of his other
structurally parallel gothic work, The Black Cat with The Tell-Tale Heart to highlight
important points of the latter.
Dear Sir: —
There is a gentleman rather the worse for wear, at Ryan’s Fourth Ward polls,
who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great
distress. He says that he is acquainted with you, and I assure you he is in
need of immediate assistance.
Yours, in haste,
Jos. W. Walker
To Dr. J. E. Snodgrass
A lot of people had different contentions as to the cause of his death: from suicide attempt, to
election violence, to alcoholism. Yet to this day, it remains a mystery.
Poe’s oeuvre has a predominantly gothic theme with images of murderers and madmen. Most
critics credit Poe’s inclination to the genre as pathological due to his dark and ill-fated
personal history (Mambrol, 2017). One can definitely assume that his stories stem from his
own life which perhaps will help readers substantially understand the nature of his works.
The Plot
The introduction is reminiscent of the structure of Poe’s other popular work, The Black Cat.
It begins with a seemingly disturbed narrator and a renunciation of his/her own madness.
“…I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a
case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not -- and
very surely do I not dream.” — The Black Cat
“TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but
why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not
destroyed—not dulled them.” — The Tell-Tale Heart
Ironically, what follows is a sinister account of the homicide, reflecting the story line of TBC.
The narrator reveals that he murdered an old man because of his “evil blue eye”. The narrator
goes into detail about how the crime was committed. Carefully biding time, the narrator visits
the old man’s apartment every midnight and observes him sleeping in the dark. In the
mornings, the narrator behaves as if everything was normal; the narrator is even kinder
towards him.
After a week of these late-night visits, the narrator resolves to finally do the deed. On the
eighth night, the narrator arrives at the old man’s apartment. The narrator carefully opens the
door to his room yet slips, causing the old man to wake up and cry out. The narrator stays still
waiting for the old man to lie down again, but neither of them moves.
Suddenly, the narrator hears a pounding coming from the old man’s terrified heart. The
narrator feels empathy towards him thinking of experiencing similar terrifying nights.
Believing that he senses a foreign presence in the room and is not going to go back to sleep
anytime soon, the narrator decides to shed a little light with the lantern to better see the old
man’s disposition.
As if fate willed it, the light shines directly into the old man’s “evil eye”. The narrator stands
there with such stillness, staring at the old man’s pale, blue eye while hearing the cadence of
the old man’s pounding chest.
Hearing this while looking at his eye—the source of the narrator’s contempt—drives the
narrator over the edge. Jumping towards the old man, the narrator smothers him with his bed,
dismembers his body, and hides them under the floorboards of the room, clearing out any
signs of the murder, like what the narrator had done with his victim in The Black Cat—
burying them somewhere in the house.
Regardless, the police are tipped by the neighbors due to the old man’s screaming earlier.
They arrive at the apartment, but the narrator tells them the screams were the narrator’s own.
Without any trace of being alarmed, the narrator invites them to sit directly above the
floorboards concealing the dismembered body of the old man. The policemen suspect nothing
for the narrator seems unbothered and at ease.
The narrator suddenly hears the same sound again—the pounding of the old man’s heartbeat.
The police do not notice it, but the narrator has grown delirious over the violent beating.
Paranoia takes over the narrator feeling that the policemen hear what he hears and already
know what happened. The narrator is overcome with guilt and confesses to them pointing
towards the floorboards.
Biographical Connection
Considering the biographical background of the writer, the narrator could very well be a
representation of one of Poe’s repressed emotions. The old man could be a characterization of
his foster father, John Allan, with whom he had a poor relationship with growing up. This
could be a displacement of Poe’s resentment towards him.
Atmosphere: Gothic. As was mentioned, Poe has an evident inclination towards the gothic
genre. The Tell-Tale Heart manifests this throughout the story. Its atmosphere is dark and
unnerving; there is nothing happy nor optimistic about the environment. The setting takes
place in an apartment singularly occupied by the old man, where the narrator comes every
midnight. Not much is said about the physical setting, but Poe used the narrator’s actions to
convey dreary and ominous feelings throughout the text. The mysterious identity of the
characters, especially the narrator, adds to the tension. There is also a sense of foreboding of
the supernatural through the narrator’s fear of the “evil eye”.
Symbolism
The eye is mostly a common symbol of power, representing insight and enlightenment. Carl
Jung (1959) quotes it as “the prototype of the mandala (Hinduism’s symbol of the universe)”.
However, such is not the case for the old man’s blue eye. His eye is established as the story’s
main symbol. But instead of it being a sign of the aforementioned, the eye is the center of the
narrator’s fear and paranoia, so much so that the character calls it “Evil”. Perhaps it is
because of the “film” (which might be responsible for its blue color), implying something
wrong about it causing the character to feel such hostility. The narrator has become so
obsessed about it that he (or she) has attributed qualities to it that may not be accurate or
factual. Still, there are no evidence proving that the eye is malevolent other than the
undependable statements of the character.
Conclusion
The ending mirrors The Black Cat’s but in a different manner—both concludes with the
psychological breakdown of the narrators. However, in The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator
confesses due to paranoia and overwhelming guilt. While the indicted in The Black Cat was
caught by the police through their own discovery of the body.
“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the
planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart! —The Tell-Tale
Heart
“In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The
corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the
eyes of the spectators…. I had walled the monster up within the tomb! —The
Black Cat
The story is a straightforward murder confession, even though it doesn’t seem so. The
narrator is consumed by delusion and so much of the narrator’s reaction only proves
projection—a psychological defense mechanism where the human ego protects itself against
unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in
themselves while attributing them to others (Siegel, K.).
The heartbeat does not come from below the floorboards. The sound is from the narrator’s
own chest—the loud beating is (or her) gnawing, unconscious guilt, which materializes as
paranoia. This must be the affliction that the character exhibits, possibly an unfortunate effect
of the narrator’s hyperesthesia, which still does not explain or justify the narrator’s obsessive
hate for the old man’s blue eye.
The narrator’s insistence on the heartbeat coming from the dismembered body of the old man,
i.e. projection, only indicates his (or her) madness—a madman does not recognize the feeling
of guilt. Hence, the title “The Tell-Tale Heart”—the unconscious betrayal of oneself.
References
Bandy, William T. (1987). "Dr. Moran and the Poe-Reynolds Myth", Myths and Reality:
The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore.
C.G. Jung. (1959). Mandala Symbolism. Bollingen Press. [on line] jungcurrents.com.
Available at: http://jungcurrents.com/jung-eye-mandala-prototype
Giordano, Robert. (June 27, 2005). "A short biography of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)."
Retrieved from: http://www.poestories.com/biography.php
Mamborl, Nasrullah. (November 30, 2017). “Literary Criticism of Edgar Allan Poe”.
Retrieved from: https://literariness.org/2017/11/30/literary-criticism-of-edgar-allan-poe/
Rajan, G. (2002). “A Feminist Rereading of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” [pdf file] Retrieved
from: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/taydornin/files/2014/10/7728800.pdf
Siegel, K. Introduction to Modern Literary Theory. [on line] Kristisiegel.com. Available at:
http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm#psycho [Accessed 13 May 2019].