The+Tell-Tale+Heart

First person point of view, The narrator, also the caretaker of the old man. The protagonist is a round and dynamic character, which we can visually see, but also can observe his change through his inner thoughts. Himself The story takes place in a strange, dark house.It seems old, sad and dark, and there is never a true joy in any of the room. It actually feels quite like a haunted house would. The time is in the mid 19th Century.
 * Point of View: **
 * Protagonist: **
 * What type of character is the Protagonist? **
 * Antagonist: **
 * Describe the setting (Time, Place, Mood and Atmosphere) **

Man Vs. Himself
 * Type of Conflict: **

The narrator, (care taker) is in a constant struggle with himself over the desire to kill his friend, the old man. He feels stricken and scared whenever he looks into the man's eye, and describes it as filmy, and that gives him a chill throughout his entire body. He keeps explaining the painstaking ways in which he prepares his murder, and taking extreme care in not being discovered and every way that would make him assume humane, instead of the obvious insanity that lives within him.
 * Describe the main conflict: **

The climax of the story is when the main character is entertaining his policeman guests. He suddenly begins hearing a ringing, like the ticking of the clock. We can identify this sound as the beating of a heart. He automatically assumes that the heart beat is coming from the murdered man under the floor boards which he was so casually sitting above. As he starts panicking, he starts animatedly talking faster and quicker so that his guests cannot hear the ringing, and from there becomes more and more hysterical until he unveils the body after his final breakdown.
 * Describe the Climax of the Story: **

The protagonist makes quite a large change in character. In the beginning of the story, he is trying to prove to us how normal and sane he is, but in the end, shows his crazy insane side by murdering the old man whom he loved.
 * How does the Protagonist change over the course of the story? **

The theme of this story is the conscience and fear that is in all of us. In this short story, we can see that even though the protagonist seems content with how everything went, he is still afraid of the guilt that comes with his actions. He may seem calm and composed on the outside, but the heart does not "lie'', and in the end made him confess to murdering the old man.
 * Describe the relationship between the title and the theme. **

The main conflict helps illustrate the theme by showing us that eventually, guilt catches up to all of us and makes us admit to all our mistakes. The man was so caught up in destroying the eye, he never realized how much he was destroying himself at the same time and eventually his conscience drove him mad.
 * How does the main conflict help to illustrate the theme? **

When the narrator is at the murder scene with the two policemen, we can see that he is struggling with his composure and mask of innocence. He feels as though the very heartbeat of the man he murdered is rising up and will give him away. In a way, this was the moment that the whole story was leading up to. He could not remain untroubled by his actions, so his own guilt and paranoia eventually made him break down and reveal his crimes.
 * How does the climax help to illustrate the theme? **


 * Give examples of each of the following literary terms in the story (use quotes): **

"It was //a low, dull, quick sound-- much much a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton//."
 * Simile: **


 * Metaphor: **

"//His fears had been ever since growing upon him//."
 * Personification: **

The glass eye the old man wore was a symbol for the evil in the narrator's heart. Every time the eye was seen by him, he would get furious and enraged, and without it, I doubt he would actually have such strong feelings against the old man.
 * Symbol: **


 * Foreshadowing (give both elements): **

I found it ironic how the narrator constantly told the readers how "sane" his actions were. How meticulously he arranged the whole thing, taking care to do things with extreme care and to not let the old man know what was coming. Although we can clearly tell that he is the complete opposite of sanity because any person in the right state of mind would never plot against someone because of such a small thing as his master's eye.
 * Irony: **

"It was open-- wide, wide open-- and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctiveness-- all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones."
 * Imagery: **

Questions:

At the time, the narrator was extremely confident that his murder was absolutely perfect. He felt much smarter and wittier than the policemen, and by leading them to the scene of the murder, was expressing how much better he thought he was. But when he started feeling that the policemen knew he was guilty, it wasn't necessarily that they knew. More like, it was his inner paranoia making him feel like his "perfect murder" was a failure and laid out for everyone to see. This is why I thought the policemen were not aware of it. He was just psyching himself out and in the end, gave it all away. The man's motivation was not logical. He explained to us, the readers, how much he loved the man. Though it was the eye that in the end, drove him to killing him. That eye that seemed to turn his blood to ice and made him vengeful. Of course, any murder of any kind is not valid. And if he truly did love the old man, that love would over take the hatred for his glass eye.
 * ** Why does the narrator lead the policemen to the old man's room? Why does he say the police "knew" that the body was hidden there? Do you agree with his perception? **
 * ** What is the narrator's motivation for murder? Is is valid? Why or why not? **
 * ** What is the narrator's nervous disease? Have you ever heard about someone developing a nervous reaction after doing something he/ she felt guilty about? **


 * ** What kind of nervous disorder did the person develop?What happened? **

Some of the conflicts in this story were more mental than what was actually going on in the home. The narrator was setting up this complicated murder, but at the same time was also battling with his inner self, deciding if this was really the right thing to do. Hearing the story from the narrator's point of view really lets us see the different stages of his sanity during the story.The looser the hold on it, the more the conflict escalated and he was left with a complete break in character and sanity.
 * ** What are some of the conflicts in the story? What effect does telling the story from the narrator's point of view have on the development of conflict?  **

The two main symbols in the story were the heart, which represented truth, fear and conscience and the glass eye of the old man which represented evil intentions, hatred and fury. Another symbol the author might have used was the chair the narrator placed on the floorboards above the body. It represented the confidence and cockiness the narrator had towards his crime.
 * ** What are the two main symbols of the story? What does each one represent? What is one other symbol Poe might have chosen? **

1. Literary Devices

Content: 15/15


 * required elements
 * accurate interpretation
 * support as required

Completion: 5/5

2. Response Questions 5/5


 * accurate interpretation
 * convincing support
 * completion

Total: 25/25