15. Heritage of Words (The Tell-Tale Heart) - Edgar Allan Poe

 

The Tell -Tale Heart

Writer : Edgar Allan Poe

This story "The Tell-tale Heart" written by the American short story Writer Edgar Allan Poe is a psychological story. In this story the boy is the narrator who unfolds in minute details the many folds of a mystery and leads his readers to the shock of the end. The boy cannot hide his crime. He reveals his crime before the three police officers.

The boy lived in an old man's house. He loved the old man. The old man had never wronged him. But the boy killed the old man in a night. So he had been nervous while thinking about how he killed the old man, cut the dead body into pieces and hid that corpse under the wooden planks in the room. He said that he killed the old man not because of the case of his property but because of the old man's evil eye. The old man had the eye of vulture, a pale blue eye with a film over it.  Whenever the eye fell upon the boy, his blood ran cold.

So he made up his mind to kill the old man and rid himself of the eye forever. In this story, the boy says many times that he is not mad. When the boy decided to take the life of the old man, every night, about midnight, he turned the latch of the old man's door and opened it gently. Then he pushed his head from the door and sent a ray of light of his lantern to the old man's eye very slowly so that he might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took him an our to place his head within the opening.

 He did such work for seven long nights but he found the old man's evil eye always closed and every morning he went to the old man's room, spoke calling him by name in a hearty tone and inquiring how he had passed the night. On the eighth night the boy was very careful to do such things. But when he pushed his head from the opening to see the old man and was about to open the lantern, his thumb slipped upon the tin fastening and the old man jumped up in bed crying out "Who is there ?" The boy stood still saying nothing. He became a symbolic shadow for the death of the old man. He waited for some time very patiently.

 Then, being courageous, he threw open the lantern and leaped into the room the old man cried once only. He killed him quickly, dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over the dead body. Then he removed the bed and examined the corpse but the old man was stone dead. Then the boy thought that the old man's eye would trouble him no more. He wanted to hide his crime. So he cut off the head, arms and legs of the corpse. He put the pieces of the dead body under the three wooden planks in the same room. There was no stain of the murder, no blood spot. He finished all that work at four o'clock in the morning.

It was four o'clock in the morning but still dark as midnight. At that time somebody knocked the door. The boy went down to open it without any fear. When he opened the door three police officers came there for making inquiry about what had happened that night as they were already informed of some crime in that house. The boy smiled, welcomed them and said that the old man was absent in the house that night. He convinced them and in the uses of his confidence, he brought chairs for them to sit. The police officers searched all the room. The boy showed them the old man's wealth. Therefore, they believed the boy.

They were satisfied. But the boy placed his own chair upon the dead body of the old man so that the police could not see the crime. At that time a ringing sound came from the corpse. The boy heard it. In his ears, it became quickly and loud. In fact, the boy had forgotten to remove the watch of the old man from his wrist. But now he thought that it was the heart-beating of the old man when the noise increased, he was surprised, he became angry. But for sometimes he talked more loudly with the police officers so that they could not listen it.

When the sound grew louder and louder, the boy thought that they heard it, suspected him as a murderer. When they laughed, he thought that they were making a mockery of his horror. He could not tolerate their smiles. So slowly he confessed his crime to the police officers that it was he who killed the old man and put the dismembered body under the wooden planks. He could not hide his crime. Thus, at last, revealing the secrecy, he asked the police officers to tear up the planks to find out the dismembered corpse of the old man.

 

The Tell -Tale Heart

Writer : Edgar Allan Poe

 

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a psychological and strange story written by Edger Allan Poe. The unnamed narrator of the story is probably a boy who lives in an old man’s house. He is suffering from the nervous disease. He is over sensitive to hearing. According to him, the old man has the eye like vulture. The narrators fears from the eyes of old man. When the eye of the old man falls upon the narrator, his blood becomes cold. To overcome these fear, the narrator wants to kill the old man to destroy the eye. Every night, the boy tries to kill the old man but becomes unsuccessful. On the eighth night, when he opens the door of the old man, he suddenly has a feeling of power. He kills the old man to be free from the eye of vulture He cuts off the head and arms of the old man and hides the dead body under the wooden floor. The boy neglects to remove the watch from the wrist of the old man. He leaves no sign of blood and other proofs of murder.

After the murder the three police officers have arrived to the house for investigation. They search the house but find no evidence of the murder. The narrator hides his inner feelings and behaves very politely and pleasantly to the police officers. He talks with a smile and shows the policemen the treasure (money) and the room of the old man. He answers the questions of the officers very carefully and happily. They believe the narrator and they talk in a friendly way about other things. Then suddenly, the boy hears the tick-tick sound that comes actually from the watch of the old man. However, the narrator mistakes it for the heart beating of the dead body. The boy tries to kill the sound by talking loudly but the sound becomes louder and louder. He becomes angry and excited. He throws his chairs across the room. The policemen still talk and smile. The boy thinks that they have already known the hidden truth. He realizes that they are making fun of him, and then in his mad sense, the narrator confesses his crime. He says that he has murdered the old man and hidden the dead body under the wooden floor.

Finally, the boy kills an innocent old man because of his madness. His nervous disease leads him to be a murderer. Again, because of his mad sense, he mistakes the clock sound of the watch to be the heart beating of the dead body and thus he confesses his guilt in front of police officers.

 

Summary

An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing the reader and claiming that he is nervous but not mad. He says that he is going to tell a story in which he will defend his sanity yet confess to having killed an old man. His motivation was neither passion nor desire for money, but rather a fear of the man’s pale blue eye. Again, he insists that he is not crazy because his cool and measured actions, though criminal, are not those of a madman. Every night, he went to the old man’s apartment and secretly observed the man sleeping. In the morning, he would behave as if everything were normal. After a week of this activity, the narrator decides, somewhat randomly, that the time is right actually to kill the old man.

When the narrator arrives late on the eighth night, though, the old man wakes up and cries out. The narrator remains still, stalking the old man as he sits awake and frightened. The narrator understands how frightened the old man is, having also experienced the lonely terrors of the night. Soon, the narrator hears a dull pounding that he interprets as the old man’s terrified heartbeat. Worried that a neighbor might hear the loud thumping, he attacks and kills the old man. He then dismembers the body and hides the pieces below the floorboards in the bedroom. He is careful not to leave even a drop of blood on the floor. As he finishes his job, a clock strikes the hour of four. At the same time, the narrator hears a knock at the street door. The police have arrived, having been called by a neighbor who heard the old man shriek. The narrator is careful to be chatty and to appear normal. He leads the officers all over the house without acting suspiciously. At the height of his bravado, he even brings them into the old man’s bedroom to sit down and talk at the scene of the crime. The policemen do not suspect a thing. The narrator is comfortable until he starts to hear a low thumping sound. He recognizes the low sound as the heart of the old man, pounding away beneath the floorboards. He panics, believing that the policemen must also hear the sound and know his guilt. Driven mad by the idea that they are mocking his agony with their pleasant chatter, he confesses to the crime and shrieks at the men to rip up the floorboards.

Analysis

Poe uses his words economically in the “Tell-Tale Heart”—it is one of his shortest stories—to provide a study of paranoia and mental deterioration. Poe strips the story of excess detail as a way to heighten the murderer’s obsession with specific and unadorned entities: the old man’s eye, the heartbeat, and his own claim to sanity. Poe’s economic style and pointed language thus contribute to the narrative content, and perhaps this association of form and content truly exemplifies paranoia. Even Poe himself, like the beating heart, is complicit in the plot to catch the narrator in his evil game.

As a study in paranoia, this story illuminates the psychological contradictions that contribute to a murderous profile. For example, the narrator admits, in the first sentence, to being dreadfully nervous, yet he is unable to comprehend why he should be thought mad. He articulates his self-defense against madness in terms of heightened sensory capacity. Unlike the similarly nervous and hypersensitive Roderick Usher in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” who admits that he feels mentally unwell, the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” views his hypersensitivity as proof of his sanity, not a symptom of madness. This special knowledge enables the narrator to tell this tale in a precise and complete manner, and he uses the stylistic tools of narration for the purposes of his own sanity plea. However, what makes this narrator mad—and most unlike Poe—is that he fails to comprehend the coupling of narrative form and content. He masters precise form, but he unwittingly lays out a tale of murder that betrays the madness he wants to deny.

Another contradiction central to the story involves the tension between the narrator’s capacities for love and hate. Poe explores here a psychological mystery—that people sometimes harm those whom they love or need in their lives. Poe examines this paradox half a century before Sigmund Freud made it a leading concept in his theories of the mind. Poe’s narrator loves the old man. He is not greedy for the old man’s wealth, nor vengeful because of any slight. The narrator thus eliminates motives that might normally inspire such a violent murder. As he proclaims his own sanity, the narrator fixates on the old man’s vulture-eye. He reduces the old man to the pale blue of his eye in obsessive fashion. He wants to separate the man from his “Evil Eye” so he can spare the man the burden of guilt that he attributes to the eye itself. The narrator fails to see that the eye is the “I” of the old man, an inherent part of his identity that cannot be isolated as the narrator perversely imagines.

The murder of the old man illustrates the extent to which the narrator separates the old man’s identity from his physical eye. The narrator sees the eye as completely separate from the man, and as a result, he is capable of murdering him while maintaining that he loves him. The narrator’s desire to eradicate the man’s eye motivates his murder, but the narrator does not acknowledge that this act will end the man’s life. By dismembering his victim, the narrator further deprives the old man of his humanity. The narrator confirms his conception of the old man’s eye as separate from the man by ending the man altogether and turning him into so many parts. That strategy turns against him when his mind imagines other parts of the old man’s body working against him

THE TELL-TALE HEART

Writer: Edgar Allan Poe

SUMMARY

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a psychological and strange story written by Edger Allan Poe. The unnamed narrator of the story is probably a boy who lives in an old man’s house. He is suffering from a nervous disease. He is oversensitive to hearing. According to him, the old man has the eyelike vulture. The narrator fears from the eyes of the old man. When the eye of the old man falls upon the narrator, his blood becomes cold. To overcome this fear, the narrator wants to kill the old man to destroy the eye. Every night, the boy tries to kill the old man but becomes unsuccessful. On the eighth night, when he opens the door of the old man, he suddenly has a feeling of power. He kills the old man to be free from the eye of vulture He cuts off the head and arms of the old man and hides the dead body under the wooden floor. The boy neglects to remove the watch from the wrist of the old man. He leaves no sign of blood and other proofs of murder.

After the murder, the three police officers have arrived at the house for investigation. They search the house but find no evidence of the murder. The narrator hides his inner feelings and behaves very politely and pleasantly to the police officers. He talks with a smile and shows the policemen the treasure (money) and the room of the old man. He answers the questions of the officers very carefully and happily. They believe the narrator and they talk in a friendly way about other things. Then suddenly, the boy hears the tick-tick sound that comes actually from the watch of the old man. However, the narrator mistakes it for the heart beating of the dead body. The boy tries to kill the sound by talking loudly but the sound becomes louder and louder. He becomes angry and excited. He throws his chairs across the room. The policemen still talk and smile. The boy thinks that they have already known the hidden truth. He realizes that they are making fun of him, and then in his mad sense, the narrator confesses his crime. He says that he has murdered the old man and hidden the dead body under the wooden floor.

Finally, the boy kills an innocent old man because of his madness. His nervous disease leads him to be a murderer. Again, because of his mad sense, he mistakes the clock sound of the watch to be the heart beating of the dead body and thus he confesses his guilt in front of police officers.

Important Questions and Answers:

1. Justify the title, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’.
Ans: The narrator is the victim of nervous disease and oversensitive to hearing. He wants to kill the old man to get rid of the vulture-like eyes of the old man. After entering into the room of the old man with an aim to kill him, the narrator starts hearing a strange, dull sound as if being made by a watch which he believes to be the heartbeat of the old man. After killing the old man, he cuts the body into pieces and hides them under the wooden floor. In the morning, when three police officers arrived there, he starts talking with them sitting in the old man’s room as the police officers don’t find anything unusual. However, while being there, the narrator starts hearing a strange sound which he believes to be the heartbeat of the old man. As he couldn’t stand the sound of the said heartbeat, he confesses his crime and reveals the entire story before the police. Since the supposed heart discloses the secret of the murder, the title The Tale-Tale Heart is therefore justifiable and appropriate to the text.

2. Was the narrator mad?
Ans: Though sanity and insanity is a matter of debate, there are various indications in the story that suggest his madness. The narrator killed an old and innocent man without any concrete reason. He did not hesitate to cut the body of the old man into pieces. Though the man loved him, he did not understand the value of love. Rather he mercilessly killed him. Even after killing and dismembering the body of the old man, he suspected that the old man’s heart was beating. He had no idea that after a man is killed his heart stops beating. The narrator has revealed himself that he is suffering from a disease which causes ‘over-acuteness of the senses’. Over-acuteness of senses is also one sign of madness. He was overcome by homicidal mania. Madmen never repent their wrongdoing. In this story also instead of repenting for his wrongful act, the narrator has tried to prove his sanity. Thus his abnormal behaviour suggests that he was truly mad.

1. Justify the title, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’.
Ans. The narrator is the victim of the nervous disease and over sensitive to hearing. He wants to kill the old man to get rid of the vulture-like eyes of the old man. After entering into the room of the old man with an aim to kill him, the narrator starts hearing a strange, dull sound as if being made by a watch which he believes to be the heartbeat of the old man. After killing the old man, he cuts the body into pieces and hides them under the wooden floor. In the morning, when three police officers arrived there, he starts talking with them sitting in the old man’s room as the police officers don’t find anything unusual. However, while being there, the narrator starts hearing a strange sound which he believes to be the heartbeat of the old man. As he couldn’t stand the sound of the said heartbeat, he confesses his crime and reveals the entire story before the police. Since the supposed heart discloses the secret of the murder, the title The Tale-Tale Heart is therefore justifiable and appropriate to the text.

2. Was the narrator mad?
Ans. Though sanity and insanity is a matter of debate, there are various indications in the story that suggest his madness. The narrator killed an old and innocent man without any concrete reason. He did not hesitate to cut the body of the old man into pieces. Though the man loved him, he did not understand the value of love. Rather he mercilessly killed him. Even after killing and dismembering the body of the old man, he suspected that the old man’s heart was beating. He had no idea that after a man is killed his heart stops beating. The narrator has revealed himself that he is suffering from a disease which causes ‘over-acuteness of the senses’. Over-acuteness of senses is also one sign of madness. He was overcome by homicidal mania. Madmen never repent their wrongdoing. In this story also instead of repenting for his wrongful act, the narrator has tried to prove his sanity. Thus his abnormal behavior suggests that he was truly mad.

 

Source:

https://tyrocity.com/topic/the-tell-tale-heart/

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section6/

https://krishnarm.com.np/class-12/heritage-of-words/the-tell-tale-heart/

https://www.merospark.com/content/36/the-tell-tale-heart/