The Tell-Tale Heart

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

The Pioneer, Vol. I, No. I, Drew and Scammell, Philadelphia, January, 1843
Author Edgar Allan Poe
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Horror
Short story
Gothic Literature
Published in The Pioneer
Publication type Periodical
Publisher James Russell Lowell
Media type Print (periodical)
Publication date January 1843

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the form of the sound—possibly hallucinatory—of the old man's heart still beating under the floorboards.

The story was first published in James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer in January 1843. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is widely considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and is one of Poe's most famous short stories.

It is unclear what relationship, if any, the old man and his murderer share. The narrator denies having any feelings of hatred or resentment for the man who had, he says, never wronged him. He also denies that he killed for greed. The specific motivation for murder, the relationship between narrator and old man, and other details are left unclear. It has been suggested that the old man is a father figure, the narrator's landlord, or that the narrator works for the old man as a servant, and that perhaps his "vulture-eye" represents some sort of veiled secret, or power. The ambiguity and lack of details about the two main characters stand in stark contrast to the specific plot details leading up to the murder.

Plot summary

Illustration by Harry Clarke, 1919

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative of an unnamed narrator[1] who insists he is sane but suffering from a disease (nervousness) which causes "over-acuteness of the senses". The old man with whom he lives has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye which so distresses the narrator that he plots to murder the old man, though the narrator states that he loves the old man, and hates only the eye. The narrator insists that his careful precision in committing the murder shows that he cannot possibly be insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room, in order to shine a sliver of light onto the "evil eye". However, the old man's vulture-eye is always closed, making it impossible to "do the work".

On the eighth night, the old man awakens after the narrator's hand slips and makes a noise, interrupting the narrator's nightly ritual. But the narrator does not draw back and, after some time, decides to open his lantern. A single thin ray of light shines out and lands precisely on the "evil eye", revealing that it is wide open. Hearing the old man's heart beating loudly and dangerously fast from terror, the narrator decides to strike, jumping out with a loud yell and smothering the old man with his own bed. The narrator then dismembers the body and conceals the pieces under the floorboards, making certain to hide all signs of the crime. Even so, the old man's scream during the night causes a neighbor to report to the police. The narrator invites the three arriving officers in to look around. He claims that the screams heard were his own in a nightmare and that the man is absent in the country. Confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder, the narrator brings chairs for them and they sit in the old man's room, on the very spot where the body is concealed, yet they suspect nothing, as the narrator has a pleasant and easy manner about him.

The narrator begins to feel uncomfortable and notices a ringing in his ears. As the ringing grows louder, the narrator comes to the conclusion that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming from under the floorboards. The sound increases steadily, though the officers seem to pay no attention to it. Terrified by the violent beating of the heart, and convinced that the officers are aware of not only the heartbeat, but his guilt as well, the narrator breaks down and confesses. He tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal the body.

Publication history

"The Tell-Tale Heart" in The Pioneer: A Literary and Critical Magazine, page 29

"The Tell-Tale Heart" was first published in January 1843 in the inaugural issue of The Pioneer, a short-lived Boston magazine edited by James Russell Lowell. Poe was likely paid $10 for the story.[2] Its original publication included an epigraph which quoted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life".[3] The story was slightly revised when republished in the August 23, 1845, edition of the Broadway Journal. This edition omitted Longfellow's poem because, Poe believed, it was plagiarized.[3] "The Tell-Tale Heart" was reprinted several additional times during Poe's lifetime.[4]

Analysis

"The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable narrator. The exactness with which the narrator recounts murdering the old man, as if the stealthy way in which he executed the crime were evidence of his sanity, reveals his monomania and paranoia.

The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is generally assumed to be male. However, some critics have suggested a woman may be narrating; no pronouns are used to clarify one way or the other.[5] The story starts in medias res. The story opens with a conversation already in progress between the narrator and another person who is not identified in any way. It has been speculated that the narrator is confessing to a prison warden, a judge, a reporter, a doctor or (anachronistically) a psychiatrist.[6] In any case, the narrator explains himself in great detail.[7] What follows is a study of terror but, more specifically, the memory of terror, as the narrator is relating events from the past.[8] The first word of the story, "True!", is an admission of his guilt, as well as an assurance of reliability.[6] This introduction also serves to gain the reader's attention.[9] Every word contributes to the purpose of moving the story forward, exemplifying Poe's theories about the writing of short stories.[10]

The story is driven not by the narrator's insistence upon his "innocence", but by his insistence on his sanity. This, however, is self-destructive, because in attempting to prove his sanity he fully admits that he is guilty of murder.[11] His denial of insanity is based on his systematic actions and his precision, as he provides a rational explanation for irrational behavior.[7] This rationality, however, is undermined by his lack of motive ("Object there was none. Passion there was none."). Despite this, he says, the idea of murder "haunted me day and night."[11]

The story's final scene shows the result of the narrator's feelings of guilt. Like many characters in Gothic fiction, he allows his nerves to dictate his nature. Despite his best efforts at defending himself, his "over acuteness of the senses", which help him hear the heart beating beneath the floorboards, is evidence that he is truly mad.[12] Poe's contemporaries may well have been reminded of the controversy over the insanity defense in the 1840s.[13]

The narrator claims to have a disease that causes hypersensitivity. A similar motif is used for Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) and in "The Colloquy of Monos and Una" (1841).[14] It is unclear, however, if the narrator actually has very acute senses, or if he is merely imagining things. If his condition is believed to be true, what he hears at the end of the story may not be the old man's heart but deathwatch beetles. The narrator first admits to hearing beetles in the wall after startling the old man from his sleep. According to superstition, deathwatch beetles are a sign of impending death. One variety of deathwatch beetle raps its head against surfaces, presumably as part of a mating ritual, while others emit ticking sounds.[14] Henry David Thoreau observed in an 1838 article that deathwatch beetles make sounds similar to a heartbeat.[15] The beating could even be the sound of the narrator's own heart. Alternatively, if the beating is really a product of the narrator's imagination, it is that uncontrolled imagination that leads to his own destruction.[16]

The relationship between the old man and the narrator is ambiguous. Their names, occupations, and places of residence are not given, contrasting with the strict attention to detail in the plot.[17] The narrator may be a servant of the old man's or, as is more often assumed, his son. In that case, the "vulture-eye" of the old man as a father figure may symbolize parental surveillance, or the paternal principles of right and wrong. The murder of the eye, then, is a removal of conscience.[18] The eye may also represent secrecy: only when the eye is found open on the final night, penetrating the veil of secrecy, is the murder carried out.[19] However, the focus of the story is the perverse scheme to commit the perfect crime.[20]

Richard Wilbur has suggested that the tale is an allegorical representation of Poe's poem "To Science", which depicts a struggle between imagination and science. In "The Tell-Tale Heart", the old man may thus represent the scientific and rational mind, while the narrator may stand for the imaginative.[21]

Adaptations

References

  1. ↑ Due to the ambiguity surrounding the identity of the story's narrator, that character's sex cannot be known for certain. However, for ease of description masculine pronouns are used in this article.
  2. ↑ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0-06-092331-8, p. 201.
  3. 1 2 Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. p. 151
  4. ↑ ""The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe" (index)". eapoe.org. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
  5. 1 2 Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York City: Checkmark Books, 2001: 234. ISBN 0-8160-4161-X
  6. 1 2 Benfey, Christopher. "Poe and the Unreadable: 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart'", in New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-521-42243-7, p. 30.
  7. 1 2 Cleman, John. "Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense", in Bloom's BioCritiques: Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0-7910-6173-6, p. 70.
  8. ↑ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8018-5730-9. p. 394
  9. ↑ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992. p. 101. ISBN 0-8154-1038-7
  10. ↑ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 394. ISBN 0-8018-5730-9
  11. 1 2 Robinson, E. Arthur. "Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'" in Twentieth Century Interpretations of Poe's Tales, edited by William L. Howarth. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1971, p. 94.
  12. ↑ Fisher, Benjamin Franklin. "Poe and the Gothic Tradition", in The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-521-79727-6, p. 87.
  13. ↑ Cleman, Bloom's BioCritiques, p. 66.
  14. 1 2 Reilly, John E. "The Lesser Death-Watch and "'The Tell-Tale Heart'", in The American Transcendental Quarterly. Second quarter, 1969.
  15. ↑ Robison, E. Arthur. "Thoreau and the Deathwatch in Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'", in Poe Studies, vol. IV, no. 1. June 1971. pp. 14-16
  16. ↑ Eddings, Dennis W. "Theme and Parody in 'The Raven'", in Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu, edited by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1990. ISBN 0-9616449-2-3, p. 213.
  17. ↑ Benfey, New Essays, p. 32.
  18. ↑ Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. ISBN 0-8071-2321-8. p. 223.
  19. ↑ Benfey, New Essays, p. 33.
  20. ↑ Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. Yale University Press, 1987. p. 132. ISBN 0-300-03773-2
  21. ↑ Benfey, New Essays, pp. 31-32.
  22. ↑ The Telltale Heart (1928) at the Internet Movie Database
  23. ↑ "IMDb Title Search: The Tell-Tale Heart". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-09-01.
  24. ↑ The Tell-Tale Heart (1934) at the Internet Movie Database
  25. ↑ The Tell-Tale Heart (1941) at the Internet Movie Database
  26. ↑ The Tell-Tale Heart (1953/I) at the Internet Movie Database.
  27. ↑ "Sleep No More", by Bill Gaines and Ed Feldstein, Shock SuspenStories, April 1953.
  28. ↑ The Tell-Tale Heart (1960) at the Internet Movie Database.
  29. ↑ The Tell-Tale Heart (1971) at the Internet Movie Database.
  30. ↑ Tell-Tale (2009) at the Internet Movie Database.
  31. ↑ "Poe's Tell-Tale Heart:The Game - Android Apps on Google Play". Play.google.com. Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  32. ↑ Telltale (2012) at the Internet Movie Database.
  33. ↑
  34. ↑ Traciy Reyes. "‘The Murder Pact’: Lifetime Movie, Also Known As ‘Tell-Tale Lies’, Airs Tonight Featuring Music By Lindsey Stirling". Inquisitr.com. Retrieved 2016-01-16.

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