The text under analysis is a short story written by
Edgar Allan Poe. The author is famous American
writer of XIXth century, belonging to the American Romantic movement. He is
best known for his mystery tales. Edgar Poe was one of the earliest American
practitioners of the short story and is generally considered to be the inventor
of the detective fiction genre. His best known works are gothic, a genre he
followed to appease the public taste. His most recurring themes deal with
questions of death, effects of decomposition, the reanimation of the dead and
mourning ( dark Romanism genre). Most famous works: "The Gold-Bug",
"Hop-Frog", "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale
Heart".
The plot of “The tell-tale heart” is devoted to a murderous plan and
the murder itself. The main hero ( the story is 1st person narrative) states at
the beginning of a story that he killed an old man. The story starts in medias
res. After that, he describes the reason of the murder and his
perfectly-calculated plan. The further development of the events is next: the murder itself, hiding the body,
inviting the police to the house and the confession. The author uses such type
of speech as monologue, where the receiver of the information is not explicitly
revealed. Such development of the story effects the readers perception
and feelings, evoking fear and disgust for the main hero. His manner of
self-justification is both ridiculous and frightening. Poe's hero commits the
murder in cold blood and after that is cheerful and praises himself for being
so smart.
The plot of the story runs as follows: the exposition,
where the main character asks the reader questions and justifies himself; the
story itself; the climax – the murder itself; the denouement – the agony of
main character.
The type of speech employed
by the author is monologue.
The main action takes place at midnight in the
modest-sized room, which kept its frightening secret only few minutes...The
room was "as black as pitch with the thick darkness for the shutters were
close fastened through fear of robbers". The room seems to be filled with
the precaution of the coming Death...The main hero uses the bed as weapon to
kill an old man. And since the bed is the murder weapon, it seems that
the bedroom is the burial place.
The main characters are
the main hero and his old master. The narrator had no great aim of killing the
master as “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire...". But what
was it? - "I think it was his eye!". How can the main hero
justify himself? "Why will you say that I am mad?...Mad men know
nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I
proceeded - with what caution - with what foresight- whit what dissimulation I
went to work!". The main character is really crank, psychopath, nutty. He murdered in cold
blood the person who trusted him, And after that he is so happy and triumphal
like all his dreams came true. This is because he refuses to think that he's
mad. He rejects it, trying to show us how wisely he acted, how accurately he
worked and how perfectly he had everything planned. He acts like an innocent
person who had the right to take someone's life because he had a reason. A
striking one: "One of his eyes resembled that one of vulture - a pale blue
eye - with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so
by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old
man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.". So he killed his “friend”.
However, An old man' s heart beating in his ears literally made him
"gasped for breath" and destroyed his self-confidence. And he
revealed the truth to the police in
strong agony.
In order to portray the
character and to convey the atmosphere of the story together with general mood
the author resorts to some expressive means and stylistic devices. Among the
lexical means the next are used: 1) metaphor: "vulture eye" used to awake in a reader the
imagination of the eye ; 2)personification: "idea entered my brain,
it...haunted me" used to show the power of the murderous thought;
3)metonymy: "all the world slept" used to magnify the scale of the
situation; 4)simile: "a single dim ray, like the thread of the
spider", "a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton",
"room was as black as pitch" used to make the description more
accurate;5) epithet: "wild audacity", "dreadful silence",
"stifled sound", "dreadful echo" used to convey the atmosphere
of the scene. Besides, there are examples of stylistic potential of noun:
"terrors". "labors", ''fatigues'' where words denote
expressiveness and their s-form intensifies the meaning. Among the syntactical
there are: 1) repetition: "I heard...I heard", "...there was
none...there was none", ''He had never...he had never'', ''closed, closed",
''steadily, steadily'', ''cautiously, cautiously'', all in vein. All in vein'',
louder and louder'' etc used to transfer the feelings of the main hero,
especially his nervous state of mind; 2)inversion: ''For his gold I had no
desire'', ''had I felt'', ''I then replaced'' used to draw attention; 3)
gradation: ''true! nervous - very very dreadfully nervous'', with what
cautious - with what foresight - with what dissimulation'' used to develop the
flow of the story and to convey the situation. Phonetic ones are: 1)
alliteration: ''disease had sharpened my senses'', ''madmen know nothing'', ''still they sat and still chatted'' etc; 2) assonance:
''he was still sitting in the bed'', ''true! nervous
- very very dreadfully nervous'' etc. There
also were applied graphic devices: 1) capitalization: ''TRUE! NERVOUS...'',
''Evil Eye'', ''Death'' used to draw attention; 2) absence of capitalization:
''...and I am! but...'', ''of the senses? now...''; 2) hyphenation: ''I foamed
- I raved - I swore'', ''louder-louder-louder'', ''scream or die!-and
now-again!'', ''it was open wide, wide open-and I grew'' etc used to emphasize
particular moments of the story and to show emotional state of the character.
Summing up the analysis of the story
one should say that the writer brilliantly uses epithet, repetition, gradation
and hyphenation which help to reveal the
main character’s nature and to create a
true-to-life atmosphere of the depicted events./
To
conclude, it’s appropriate to say, that atmosphere created by Edgar Poe in this story envelopes the reader and
transfers him from the real world into the mysterious life of the main
character.
