The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe of an unnamed narrator who murders an older man who lives in the same house as him. The narrator is then haunted by what he thinks is the rapid heartbeat of the deceased man, coming from beneath the floorboards. The Tell-Tale Heart was published in 1843 in a small Boston publication called The Pioneer: A Literary and Critical Magazine. The short story is often presented as a classic of gothic horror. The Tell-Tale Heart centers on the unreliable, unnamed narrator who spends much of the text trying to convince the reader that he is not insane. The narrator goes into excruciating detail on some details of the planned and later executed murder while giving away very little information about himself.
Moreover, the narrator’s case is undermined as he cannot provide a motive for committing the murder. This short story can be analyzed from the formalist literary theory approach, including addressing such questions as to how the imagery was used to develop symbols, the work’s organic unity, and interconnectedness. Moreover, the theory helps to approach the application of paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension, as well as the story’s aesthetic, resolution of contradictions, the content, and central passage of the work.
The Use of Imagery to Develop Symbols
In The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator focuses on eyes, particularly the eyes of his victim. The narrator describes it as “the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” (Poe 3). The narrator’s focus on eyes contrasts his blindness to his actions and condition as he does not see his actions as insane. The narrator believes the old man, his target, is in possession of an evil eye. To counteract the perceived powers of this evil eye, the narrator uses a lantern to shine a slim ray of light on it. The lamp itself sheds light on the truth that the old man was never evil; however, the narrator is blind to this (Amir 20). Both the “evil eye” and the lantern spend much of the story closed, despite the narrator’s obsession. Edgar Allan Poe uses the juxtaposition of eyes and lanterns, both ostensible tools to perceive as a means of presenting the narrator’s real insanity and how it blinds him.
The Work’s Organic Unity
The Tell-Tale Heart is unified through the constant narration of its unnamed protagonist. All the events, real and imagined, are described in varying detail by the narrator, giving the text consistency in tone. The text is filled with the constant narrative that the narrator is not insane, while said narrator provides examples of actions that, in his mind, prove his sanity. While the narrator is unreliable, the text does not switch perspectives and is presented as a whole, making it feel like a story told without pauses. The Tell-Tale Heart contains numerous anaphoras that help reinforces an idea or emphasize an emotion (Amir 22). These assist in creating continuity in the text and familiarizing the reader with the narrator’s tone and style. For example, the narrator, hearing the “tell-tale heart,” says, “It grew louder—louder—louder!” (Poe 8). This creates the sensation of the narrator telling the story out loud to an audience. Overall, Edgar Allan Poe effectively created a unified text with an unreliable, possibly insane narrator.
The Interconnectedness of the Work
As a short story, The Tell-Tale Heart does not contain clear parts of chapters; rather, it functions as a singular event described by the narrator. The narrative begins pre-murder, with the narrator describing his target and his reasons for plotting to kill. This transitions into the actual murder and the lead up to it. Lastly, the narrator describes how the body is disposed of, the police arriving, and finally, the sound coming from the floorboards. What connects these events, taking place over at least eight to nine days, is the narrator, particularly the individual’s constant insistence that he is not insane.
The Application of Paradox, Irony, Ambiguity, and Tension
Poe applies paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension in his work. The paradox is an illogical and inconsistent observation that can be genuine and valid (Amir 23). The Tell-Tale Heart utilizes this principle in various instances, “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him” (Poe 3). In this case, the paradox adds to the shock value of the scenery, as the readers connect principles and emotions that are not generally put together. The story is meant to shock and surprise; thus, this literary tool is especially valuable.
Moreover, irony implies the situations when the opposite of what is anticipated occurs. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the author has successfully adopted many types of irony to represent the narrative of the story. At the end of the story, the vivid instance of verbal irony is present when highly disturbed by the clock’s ticking noise; he cries, “Villains…Dissemble no more!” (Poe 8). This is ironic because, in reality, the sounds that he hears are coming from a clock. Moreover, Poe is demonstrating the example of situational irony. The narrator performs the murder and hides the body flawlessly, so that police officers do not accuse him of committing this crime (Amir 24). Thus, he fully controls the situation; however, at the same time, he almost admits of his wrongdoings because the narrator believes he can hear the heartbeat of a man.
Ambiguity is connected to a statement that bears more than one meaning. For example, ambiguous rhetoric points to obscurity and uncertainty, which form the basis for occurrences of humourous situations. The short story The Tell-Tale Heart has various instances of ambiguity, including the narrator’s uncertain persona (Sánchez-Verdejo Pérez 130). The author is attempting to present him as a mentally stable individual, which only undeniably proves that he is not. However, Poe describes various troubling details of the crime, including dismemberment from the point of view of the murderer, which adds to the ambiguity of the situation.
Furthermore, tension is the literary element that provokes sensations such as distress, anxiety, nervousness, and fear amongst readers and the characters in a story. When the police officers appear to explore the residence after a neighbor proclaims hearing a scream, the main character pretends to welcome the visitors. Moreover, he encourages them to “search—search well” (Poe 7). Academics determined that this scene has a strong tension between the main character’s pretense in his attempt to disguise his offense and his reaction to what he considers to appear the officers’ dissemblance (Shen 330). Overall, tension is a vital attribute of the story, as it generates additional interest in the conflict, as the readers feel anxious and nervous about this encounter.
Aesthetic Quality of the Work
The elements mentioned above work to create aesthetic unity in The Tell-Tale Heart. Paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension work in concert to create a consistent aesthetic throughout the text. Shen argues that Poe uses these elements, as well as rhythm in writing, to bridge the conventions of prose and poetry (325). Within the narrative conventions of the time, prose aesthetically deals with truth, while poetry deals with beauty (Shen 326). While The Tell-Tale Heart does not necessarily conform with the aesthetic sensibilities of its time, Poe successfully uses paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension to create aesthetic consistency in the story. These four elements reinforce each other by revealing the unreliability and insanity of the narrator.
The Resolution of Contradictions
The main character’s abnormal control of the defense goes against established expectations, which adds to the intense contradiction between his declared sanity and genuine madness. However, Poe successfully manages the apparent contradiction within the main character’s behavior. Even more, he uses this as a tool that can be interpreted based on the cultural context. Shen mentions that the protagonist of the story displays the evident symptoms of moral insanity (342). However, he is not one-dimensional and has characteristics of a rational and calm individual. The protagonist calmly tells the story to the officer, quietly handles, and hides the crime. At the same time, he is extremely nervous and has no reasonable motive to kill the man, as he mentions, “He had never wronged me. He had never given me an insult” (Poe 3). Literature suggests that this engagement in contradictions is explicitly satirical, as Poe denies the existence of moral insanity by using the lack of rationality as the individual basis for confirming insanity (Shen 343). Nonetheless, the author is using various tools to make a story more coherent.
The Correlation between the Form of the Work and the Content
The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story, primarily told through a narrator. The short story form also serves to highlight particular aspects of the narrator’s perspective. For example, the narrator exclaims to the audience that the police investigating an old man’s disappearance are villains. The audience is never shown anything that does not first go through the mind of the narrator. This creates a feeling of immediacy for the reader as if they were hearing the confession of the narrator (Shen 330). The confessional form of the text highlights the insanity presented in the content. Poe, engaging with the conventions of his time regarding truth and beauty in poetry and text, uses elements of poetic rhythm to indicate the potentially unreliable verity of the narrative (Shen 325). A confession assumes that the confessor tells the truth; however, the poetic rhythm present in parts of the text indicates the narrator may be unwittingly dishonest.
The Central Passage
The text does not contain a central passage, as Poe maintains the consistency of the narrator’s story throughout The Tell-Tale Heart. While the narrator is unreliable and likely insane, Poe avoids using a particular passage to highlight this; instead, the story remains stylistically similar from the beginning to the end. Thus, the readers can spot passages that contain the corresponding meaning throughout the text. For example, the first part of the book includes this comment “why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed” (Poe 3). Furthermore, the statement in the middle of the story is, “And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?” (Poe 6). Therefore, Poe possibly wants readers to notice that the narrator remains consistently insane and does not change throughout the text. Moreover, these passages led some scholars to believe that Poe wants readers to take the over-acute hearing as a fictional event instead of metaphorical (Shen 331). This is clear for literary critics due to the consistency within the passages.
Conclusion
The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe about an individual who kills an older man sharing a house with him. The Tell-Tale Heart can be thoroughly examined from the formalist literary theory method. In the Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator concentrates on eyes, particularly the eyes of his victim, which is a primary symbol of the story. The Tell-Tale Heart’s unity is designed through the continuous narration of its unnamed main character. The author successfully utilizes paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension in the Tell-Tale Heart. These literary components manage to produce aesthetic integration in the story. Moreover, Poe maintains the seeming contradictions within the main character’s behavior by using it as a literary tool. The form of the short story helps to underline critical viewpoints of the narrator’s perspective. Lastly, the story does not bear a focal passage because of the overall consistency of the narrator’s psychological state.
Works Cited
Amir, Shamaila. “Stylistic Analysis of the Short Story’ The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe.” Angloamericanae Journal, vol. 3, no. 1, 2018, pp. 18-28.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tale Heart. Bantam, 1982. Elegant Ebooks.
Sánchez-Verdejo Pérez, Francisco Javier. “Poe’s Unreliable Narrator: the Reader as a Privileged Witness and the Narrator’s Credibility.” Journal of English and Spanish Studies, no. 5, 2020, pp. 128-150, Web.
Shen, Dan. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Aesthetic Theory, the Insanity Debate, and the Ethically Oriented Dynamics of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.” Nineteenth-Century Literature, vol. 63, no. 3, 2008, pp. 9-23. Web.