"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in
1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old
man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides
the body by cutting it into pieces and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the
narrator's guilt manifests itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating
under the floorboards.
It is unclear what relationship, if any, the old man and his murderer share. It
has been suggested that the old man is a father figure or, perhaps, that his vulture
eye represents some sort of veiled secret. The ambiguity and lack of details about
the two main characters stand in stark contrast to the specific plot details leading up
to the murder.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative of an unnamed narrator who
insists he is sane but suffering from a disease which causes "over-acuteness of the
senses." The old man with whom he lives has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye
which so distresses the narrator that he plots to murder the old man. The narrator
insists that his careful precision in committing the murder shows that he cannot
possibly be insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's
room, a process which takes him a full hour. However, the old man's vulture eye is
always closed, making it impossible to do the deed.
On the eighth night, the old man awakens and sits up in his bed while the
narrator performs his nightly ritual. The narrator does not draw back and, after
some time, decides to open his lantern. A single ray of light shines out and lands
precisely on the old man's eye, revealing that it is wide open. Thinking he hears the
old man's heartbeat beating unusually loudly from terror, the narrator decides to
strike, smothering the old man with his own bed. The narrator proceeds to chop up
the body and conceal the pieces under the floorboards. The narrator makes certain
to hide all signs of the crime. Even so, the old man's scream during the night
causes a neighbor to call the police. The narrator invites the three officers to look
around, confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder. The narrator
brings chairs for them and they sit in the old man's room, right on the very spot
where the body was concealed, yet they suspect nothing, as the narrator has a
pleasant and easy manner about him.
The narrator, however, begins to hear a faint noise. As the noise grows louder,
the narrator comes to the conclusion that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming
from under the floorboards. The sound increases, though the officers seem to pay
no attention to it. Shocked by the constant beating of the heart and a feeling that the
officers must be aware of the sound, the narrator confesses to killing the old man
and tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal the body
Analysis
"The Tell-Tale Heart" starts in medias res, in the middle of an event. The
opening is an in-progress conversation between the narrator and another person
who is not identified in any way. It is speculated that the narrator is confessing to a
prison warden, judge, newspaper reporter, doctor or psychiatrist This sparks the
narrator's need to explain himself in great detail. What follows is a study of terror but,
more specifically, the memory of terror as the narrator is relating events from the
past. The first word of the story, "True!", is an admission of his guilt. This introduction
also serves to immediately grab the reader's attention and pull him into the story.
From there, every word contributes to the purpose of moving the story forward,
possibly making "The Tell-Tale Heart" the best example of Poe's theories on a
perfect short story.
The story is driven not by the narrator's insistence upon his innocence but by
insistence on his sanity. This, however, is self-destructive because in attempting to
prove his sanity he fully admits he is guilty of murder. His denial of insanity is based
on his systemic actions and precisiona rational explanation for irrational behavior.
This rationality, however, is undermined by his lack of motivation ("Object there was
none. Passion there was none."). Despite this, he says the idea of murder, "haunted
me day and night." The story's final scene, however, is a result of the narrator's
feelings of guilt. Like many characters in the Gothic tradition, his nerves dictate his
true nature. Despite his best efforts at defending himself, the narrator's "over
acuteness of the senses," which help him hear the heart beating in the floorboards,
is actually evidence that he is truly mad. Readers during Poe's time would have
been especially interested amidst the controversy over the insanity defense in the
1840s.
The narrator claims to have a disease which causes hypersensitivity in his
senses. A similar motif is used for Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of
Usher" (1839) and in "The Colloquy of Monos and Una" (1841).[9] It is unclear,
however, if the narrator actually has very acute senses or if he is merely imagining
things. If his condition is believed to be true, what he hears at the end of the story
may not be the old man's heart but death watch beetles. The narrator first admits to
hearing death watches in the wall after startling the old man from his sleep.
According to superstition, death watches are a sign of impending death. One variety
of death watch beetles raps its head against surfaces, presumably as part of a
mating ritual, while others emit a ticking sound. Henry David Thoreau had suggested
in 1838 that the death watch beetles sound similar to a heartbeat. Alternatively, if the
heart beating is really a product of the narrator's imagination, it is that uncontrolled
imagination that leads to his own destruction.
The relationship between the old man and the narrator is ambiguous, as is
their names, their occupations, or where they live. In fact, that ambiguity adds to the
tale as an ironic counter to the strict attention to detail in the plot. The narrator may
be a servant of the old man's or, as is more often assumed, his son. In that case, the
"vulture" eye of the old man is symbolizing parental surveillance and possibly the
paternal principles of right and wrong. The murder of the eye, then, is a removal of
conscience. The eye may also represent secrecy, again playing on the ambiguous
lack of detail about the man or the narrator. Only when the eye is finally found open
on the final night, penetrating the veil of secrecy, that the murder is carried out.
Regardless, their relationship is incidental; the focus of the story is the perverse
scheme to commit the perfect crime.
Former United States Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur has suggested that the
tale is an allegorical representation of Poe's poem "To Science." The poem shows
the struggle between imagination and science. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the old man
represents the scientific rational mind while the narrator is the imaginative.
chiar deasupra criptei, i deschide fereastra ctre furtun. El observ c heleteul din jurul casei
pare s strluceasc n ntuneric, aa cum era reprezentat n picturile lui Roderick Usher, dei nu
exist niciun fulger.
Naratorul ncearc s-l calmeze pe Roderick citindu-i cu voce tare The Mad Trist, un roman
despre un cavaler pe nume Ethelred care sparge ua chiliei unui pustnic, ntr-o ncercare de a
scpa de furtuna care se apropie, doar pentru a gsi un palat de aur pzit de un dragon. El
gsete, de asemenea, agat pe perete un scut strlucitor de aram pe care este scris o legend:
c cel care ucide balaurul ctig scutul. Cu o lovitur de buzdugan, Ethelred ucide balaurul, care
moare cu un strigt ascuit, i se duce s ia scutul, care cade pe podea cu un zgomot ngrozitor.
Pe msur ce naratorul citete despre intrarea cu fora a cavalerului n chilie, se aud sunete de
crpturi i spargeri undeva n cas. Atunci cnd dragonul este descris ca urlnd pe moarte, se
aude din nou un sunet aspru i prelung n cas. Cnd el se refer la scutul care cade de pe perete,
o reverberaie metalic i goal poate fi auzit. Roderick devine tot mai isteric i exclam n cele
din urm c aceste sunete sunt fcute de sora lui, care era, de fapt, n via, atunci cnd a fost
ngropat i c Roderick tia c ea era n via. Ua dormitorului este apoi suflat ca de un vnt
pentru a vedea c n spatele ei se afla Madeline. Ea se prbuete greoi peste fratele ei i amndoi
cad mori pe podea. Naratorul fuge apoi din cas i, pe msur ce face acest lucru, observ un
fulger de lumin fcndu-l s se uite napoi la Casa Usher, la timp pentru a vedea cum ea se rupe
n dou, fragmentele scufundndu-se n heleteu.
The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe.
The story was first published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in September 1839.
The tale opens with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend,
Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country
complaining of an illness and asking for his comfort. Although Poe wrote this short
story before the invention of modern psychological science, Usher's symptoms can
be described according to its terminology. They include hyperesthesia (extreme
hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smells, and tastes), hypochondria, and acute
anxiety. It is revealed that Usher's twin sister, Madeline, is also ill, suffering from
catalepsy. The narrator is impressed with Usher's paintings, and attempts to cheer
him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the
guitar. Usher sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the
house he lives in to be sentient, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement
of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it.
Usher later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be
entombed for two weeks in a vault in the house before being permanently buried.
They inter her, but over the next week both Usher and the narrator find themselves
becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. A storm begins. Usher
comes to the narrator's bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and
throws open his window to the storm. He notices that the bog surrounding the house
seems to glow in the dark, as it glowed in Roderick Usher's paintings, although there
is no lightning.
The narrator attempts to calm Usher by reading aloud The Mad Trist, a novel
involving a knight named Ethelred who breaks into a hermit's dwelling in an attempt
to escape an approaching storm, only to find a palace of gold guarded by a dragon.
He also finds hanging on the wall a shield of shining brass of which is written a
legend: that the one who slays the dragon wins the shield. With a stroke of his
mace, Ethelred fells the dragon, who dies with a piercing shriek, and proceeds to
take the shield, which falls to the floor with an unnerving clatter.
As the narrator reads of the knight's forcible entry into the dwelling, cracking
and ripping sounds are heard somewhere in the house. When the dragon is
described as shrieking as it dies, a shriek is heard, again within the house. As he
relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can
be heard. Usher becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these
sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed
and that Usher knew that she was alive. The bedroom door is then blown open to
reveal Madeline standing there. She falls violently in death upon her brother, who
dies of his own terror. The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices
a flash of light causing him to look back upon the House of Usher, in time to watch it
break in two, the fragments sinking into the tarn.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered the best example of Poe's "totality",
where every element and detail is related and relevant.
The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace
Walpole's Castle of Otranto, a late 18th Century novel which largely contributed in
defining the Gothic genre. But Poe's version of Gothic literature is a biased one
because it is fundamentally hyperbolic -- horror is here so intense that it verges on
the grotesque. Romanticism is represented in the same way, for the character of
Usher brings the stereotype of the Romantic poet to its extreme. Usher closely
resembles the bedazzled, melancholy genius who is haunted by death and
madness. However, he inspires awe as well as repulsion, owing to his corpse-like
appearance. He is even, to a certain extent, a comic character. Indeed, he is both a
sublime musician and writer as well as a hopeless drug addict. He is seemingly in
love with his own sister, whom he irresponsibly buries even though he knows she is
cataleptic.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" shows Poe's ability to create an emotional
tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt. These emotions center
on Roderick Usher who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed
disease. Like the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart", his disease causes his
hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Roderick's
mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be
sick based on his family's history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a
hypochondriac. Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her
alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.
The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the
family, plays a significant role in the story. It is the first "character" that the narrator
introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: its windows are
described as "eye-like" twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in its
side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house "dies" along with the
two Usher siblings. This connection was emphasized in Roderick's poem "The
Haunted Palace" which seems to be a direct reference to the house that
foreshadows doom.
L. Sprague de Camp, in his Lovecraft: A Biography [p.246f], wrote that
"[a]ccording to the late [Poe expert] Thomas O. Mabbott, [H. P.] Lovecraft, in
'Supernatural Horror,' solved a problem in the interpretation of Poe" by arguing that
"Roderick Usher, his sister Madeline, and the house all shared one common soul".
The explicit psychological dimension of this tale has prompted many critics to
analyze it as a description of the human psyche, comparing, for instance, the House
to the unconscious, and its central crack to the personality split which is called
Dissociative identity disorder. Mental disorder is also evoked through the themes of
melancholy, possible incest and vampirism. An incestuous relationship between
Roderick and Madeline is not explicitly stated, but seems implied by the strange
attachment between the two.
Major themes
The doppelgnger theme, prominent in such works of Poe as "William Wilson",
appears as well in "The Fall of the House of Usher". The reflection of the house in
the tarn is described in the opening paragraph, and "a striking similitude between the
brother and sister" is mentioned when Madeline "dies".
Poe uses the theme of the death and resurrection of a woman here as well as
in "Ligeia" and "Morella."
The theme of mental illness is explored in this work, as it is in numerous other
tales such as "Berenice".
Interment while alive is also explored in "The Premature Burial" and "The
Cask of Amontillado".
There are also various Gothic elements, such as the decrepit castle and tarn,
whose signs of decay reflect the mental condition of Usher, which is rapidly
deteriorating.
The opening epigraph quotes "Le Refus" (1831) by the French songwriter
Pierre-Jean de Branger (1780-1857), translated to English as "his heart is a
suspended lute, as soon as it is touched, it resounds". Branger's original text
reads "Mon cur" (my heart) and not "Son cur" (his/her heart).
Genres
Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease
the public taste.[76] His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including
its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the
reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Many of his works are generally considered
Literary theory
Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism
and also in essays such as "The Poetic Principle". He disliked didacticism and
allegory though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just
beneath the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art. He
believed that quality work should be brief and focus on a specific single effect. To
that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and
idea. In "The Philosophy of Composition", an essay in which Poe describes his
method in writing "The Raven", he claims to have strictly followed this method. It has
been questioned, however, if he really followed this system. T. S. Eliot said: "It is
difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting that if Poe plotted out his poem
with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it: the result
hardly does credit to the method." Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the
essay as "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization".
Literary influence
During his lifetime, Poe was mostly recognized as a literary critic. Fellow critic
James Russell Lowell called him "the most discriminating, philosophical, and
fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America", though he
questioned if he occasionally used prussic acid instead of ink. Poe was also known
as a writer of fiction and became one of the first American authors of the 19th
century to become more popular in Europe than in the United States. Poe is