The Tell-Tale Heart is a story by Edgar Allan Poe initially published in 1843. The writer utilizes various poetic techniques to deliver the internal state of the character who experiences a mental disorder. The most important one is the use of first-person narration. This point of view allows us to characterize a person’s mental condition comprehensively and creates a view of the issue built from the inside. By using the first-person narration throughout the story, Poe creates a strong connection between the character and the reader: it helps to feel the irrationality and subjectivism of the narrator’s estimations of himself.
From the first paragraph of the story, the reader notices that the narrator is driven by a sense of guilt for the committed murder and tries to convince people who would read the story that he is not mad. Interestingly, this kind of persisting attempt to convince the reader helps to understand the deepness of the mental ailment of the narrator. The straightforward statement of denying insanity strongly contradicts the content describing how obsessive thought led the character to the murder. In this case, the first person’s point of view delivers an important message that the narrator unsuccessfully tries to convince the reader and himself that his actions did not result from a mental disorder (Poe 1). In the scenario of third-person narration, it would have entailed a sense of judgment, and the reader would have needed to give a narrator the benefit of the doubt. Instead, the first person’s point of view allows us to observe the insanity firsthand.
The importance of the first-person narration becomes clear while analyzing the structure of the story which is presented as a monolog of the narrator. Most of the story consists of short sentences beginning with the pronoun I, thereby failing to understand how a person explains events and actions. The rare instances of using a more complicated sentence structure attract attention to the wrong way of thinking they reveal. For instance, both before and during the crime scene, the narrator is obsessed with the heartbeat of an older man that he thinks he can hear. The reader understands, though, it is highly unlikely to hear the heartbeat being outside the room: most probably, the noise the narrator hears comes from himself. Meanwhile, even while killing a man, the narrator remains focused on the heartbeat: he wonders whether the neighbor would notice it. Thus, the narrator ignores that the fight itself creates much more noise (Poe 2). This illustration executed by first-person narrative presents a clear picture of a biased perception of reality associated with the obvious insanity of a person saying the story.
The first-person narration serves another important function throughout the story: it shows how the whole story and the monolog are developed. It begins with a straightforward denying of madness and gradually turns into a set of events where every next one should become more and more persuasive in denying the narrator’s madness (Poe 2). At the same time, the content becomes more and more absurd, which strengthens the assurance that the impaired mind produces the monolog. For instance, the narrator posits that the effort he made to conceal the dead body of a murdered man serves as perfect proof that he is not insane, whereas the reader realizes otherwise.
The first-person narration also creates a particular emotional atmosphere in the story. The narrator uses repetitive language, which is perceived as anxiety accelerating throughout the story. If the same story had been said from a third-person perspective, it would have either contained the personal attitude of that third person or shown a shortlist of actions. The former would have distracted the reader from the condition of the madman, while the latter would have not properly delivered the person’s emotional state. The narrator’s speech is also quite emotional, and the reader recognizes the escalation of emotions throughout the story. Short sentences beginning with the pronoun I and ending with a question or an exclamation prevail at the end of the story (Poe 1-4).
What is more important, the narrator often uses strong verbs like know emphasizing that the narrator’s mind is unhealthy. Despite the immorality of the crime he has committed, he does not seem to doubt the idea that he is a healthy but too emotional person. Thus, first-person narration is a successful technique to explain the content using the feelings of the narrator.
Taking everything into consideration, the first-person narration of The Tell-Tale Heart is very important to deliver the content. The author introduces the reader to a mind of a mad person, thereby allowing get a sense of how it is organized and making conclusions based on a real-life experience. This technique is advantageous over description from the perspective of a third person because it allows one to perceive the condition from the inside. The story of Edgar Allan Poe is persuasive and illustrative since it shows the inner shape of madness, making a reader go through insanity together with a narrator.
Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” 1843. Web.