...The language and sentence structure is significant in Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale-Heart to portray the narrator's mentally unstable condition and personality. Poe depicts the narrator's personality as an individual who suffers from a mentally unstable condition through a series of anaphoras, “You should have seen how wisely I proceeded – with what caution – with what foresight – with what dissimulation I went to work.” (13). The repetition of the words “with what” incorporates a sense of confidence to the narrator's personality by describing how he will proceed with “caution” and “foresight” when determining how the narrator will resolve his inner conflict with the old man's blind eye. Poe incorporates the movement in the story physically...
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...Tell-Tale Heart “TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” Upon reading the very first paragraph of the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, many, if not all, readers can imply that there is something peculiar about the narrator. If some readers were not convinced enough to believe that he is insane from this paragraph, the rest of the story certainly will prove his insanity. Throughout the tale, the narrator desperately tries to defend himself and prove that he is sane by telling...
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...In the Romantic Works, Joyce Carol Oates, and Edgar Allen Poe explore the nature of violence through Gothic Elements. In Joyce Carol Oates works such as “Where is Here?”, and “Where Are You Going,Where Have You’ve Been”, and Edgar Allen Poe’s works such as “The Raven”, “A Tell-Tale Heart”, and “The Black Cat”, both of the author's give a form of imagery to create the feeling of violence. Such as Oates creates indirect violence, hidden within the lines, where Poe, has more explicit and direct violence not hidden between the lines. In Oates's works such as ,” Where is Here?”, violence is not told to be happening within the context of the writing, but one has to look more closely to actually see it. For example, in Oates work “Where is Her?” in his writing it says,” This was one of my happy places!-at least when my father was not home. “. When Oates writes about it being peaceful when the father was not home. It suggests that the father in a way was abusive, or in any form violent because in the tex . “The father violently jerked his arm and thrust her away”.In quote to this shows one of the rare direct violence in Oates writing where the father directly jerks the mother's hand away, and where the mother walks away, KNOWING that a bruise the size of a pear would appear on her arm in the morning. In oates other story “Where Are You...
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...Poe’s Dark Appeal There are few writers as adept at invoking feelings and images of darkness, dread, and depression in a reader as successfully as Edgar Allan Poe. Born in Boston in 1809 to impoverished actors David and Elizabeth Poe (Allen), Edgar’s entire existence seems to have been destined for struggle and loss. He was orphaned by age three, losing his mother to tuberculosis and his father by desertion (Allen). He was taken in by the Allan family, but during Edgar’s year-long stint at West Point in 1830—and subsequent expulsion—his relationship with his foster father suffered irreparable damage (“Biography”). His life soon became a mélange of depression, alcoholism, unemployment, and financial hardship (“Biography”). He died in 1949 while on a trip to Baltimore, under mysterious circumstances: theories of “congestion of the brain,” alcoholism, rabies, epilepsy, and carbon monoxide poisoning continue to swarm today (“Biography”). Having lived a life of constant struggle and turmoil, it is not surprising that his works are imbued with brooding and despondency, and that the common themes in his writings revolve around derangement and death. His short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” provides a perfect example of his fixation with madness, murder, and melancholy. It is this very fascination with all things grotesque, combined with his uncanny ability to weave multiple literary elements together to create a bizarre tapestry that appeals to readers, and what makes Edgar Allan Poe...
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...The Themes of Madness and of Love and Hate in Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” and Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “Tell Tale Heart” and in Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover,” both unnamed narrators commit murder and provide the audience with a seemingly unjustifiable reason as to why they murder their loved ones. In “Tell Tale Heart” and in “Porphyria’s Lover,” both narrators attempt to pose to the audience that they are not insane and effectively accomplish this through their tone and explicit narration. Two of the recurring themes within both Poe’s short story and Browning’s poem are madness and the tension between love and hate. The themes are reinforced through calm tone and passive tone and through the characterization of the narrators. In Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart,” the narrator opens up the short story denying the fact that he is insane and defends his statement by confessing to killing an old man in a very calculated and precise manner with the simple motivation being his fear of the old man’s “eye of a vulture.” The narrator goes through with his plan of murdering the old man and hides the body only to be engulfed by a feeling of guilt which leads him to confessing his act to the police. Throughout the short story, the narrator continues to tell the audience that he is not insane due to his “sharpened … senses” and his “calm” way of telling the whole story, yet it is his tale of murder that contradicts the very claim that he attempts to...
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...Edgar Allen Poe’s notorious drug and alcohol abuse combined with his dysfunctional and unsupportive family played a significant role in the development of Poe’s unique writing styles and topics. Edgar Allen Poe was born January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe was a British actress. His father, David Poe Jr. was an actor from Baltimore. Edgar Allen Poe had two other siblings, a brother named William and a sister named Rosalie. Poe did not have a close relationship with his parents; they were a part of his life for a short amount of time. His father abandoned his wife and children, a few years later Elizabeth contracted tuberculosis. (“Edgar Allan Poe.” Poetry Foundation.) She was the first of Poe’s many...
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...Blood and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart,” where both try to peer into the minds of murderers using symbolism and themes of madness; yet, the narrator's perspective and overall tone differ. Throughout both stories the authors explore themes of madness, be it focused on a main character or the narrator themself. In his book, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote explores sanity through Perry Smith, the man who famously murdered the Clutter family in their home in Holcomb, Kansas; all because him and his accomplice wanted access to the Clutter family’s safe. Perry was a happy child until his father started brutally beating his mother, who then took to drinking and promiscuity. Eventually she dragged her kids to San Francisco, where Perry was getting into trouble constantly. He blamed it on having "no rule or discipline, or anyone to show me right from wrong." (Capote 275) This lead to Perry’s...
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...When you hear the name Edgar Allan Poe you automatically think of a dreary, scary story. This is not all Poe is known for. Poe has written love stories in his time such as Annabel Lee and the poem “For Annie.” Poe lived a poor lifestyle because writers did not make a great deal of money during his lifetime. Despite the fact that he was poor, Poe still managed to have a fulfilling love life. His foster family did not approved of him because he did not follow the family trade. Instead, he used women to satisfy his desire to be accepted. After Poe died a rivalry of his gave him a bad reputation which in the end only helped Poe’s work become much more famous. This enemy of Poe’s deemed him a drunk womanizer, which you will see is not true, and is only in retaliation because Poe’s harshly criticized this man’s work. Poe lived in the Romantic Era, thus inspiring the theme of many of his works. Romanticism was a movement in the late 18th century of the arts and literature. It was the theory, practice and style of romantic art, literature, and music. The Romantic Movement was based on moving away from the classical style...
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...had to rework my initial plan to merge two stories together, and I choose to do an imitation of “A Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. I wanted to put a much different twist on the story, by making the main character an estranged and battered wife and mother. I knew that I wanted to imitate the short story with a woman’s prospective so I decided to look up why woman kill, their husbands specifically. Abuse came up several times. I felt like this related to the problems with domestic violence today, so that aspect made the plot more contemporary. I also wanted to make a somewhat somber plot, in the beginning and then slowly reveal how a broken woman goes mad. Her husband was the main catalyst in his own death. I hinted multiple times in my imitation that she was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. The beginning the story is prefaced the morning after she kills her husband and then buried him beneath the floor boards, much like Edgar Allen Poe’s character did with the “old man” he murdered. She slowly goes more insane, and she ends up snapping in the end, like Poe’s character did. The comments she makes to herself after she kills her husband are almost self-satisfying, like she is content with the kill. I wanted to make the tone and mood just as eerie as Poe makes his short story. The only emotional change I made between the opposing characters was that Poe’s character felt somewhat guilty, and the main character in my story had a nervous breakdown, ripped...
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...Poe’s suspenseful short story, Tell-Tale Heart, effectively portrays the killer through the use of literary tools and themes such as mortality, imagery, and point of view. The main character wants to show he is not insane, and even offers a story as proof. The narrator’s decision to kill the old man so that the eye would stop looking at him marked the initial situation. The motives of the killer aren’t understood, which makes the murder mystery difficult to understand. Was the narrator insane? Did he kill the old man in self-defense? As such, the fear of death is expressed in the text. For example, “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” This excerpt illustrates the narrator’s thoughts of mortality. “Yes, he was stone, stone dead”, depicts how the narrator continued to express the old man’s death in a conspicuous/ distinct manner. Edgar Allen Poe can build so much fixated context over the old mans “vulture eye”, amplifying the use of imagery in the text. “You fancy me mad...You should have seen how wisely I proceeded.” This is ironic because the man tells himself he is normal that he is killing a man because of his eye. Another example is, “a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” The symbol in this quote was the film over the eye, how the man couldn't see as well what was going on right under his nose. Poe creates confusion using his pandemonium literature to render the imagery of the story. Whether or not the old man...
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...Edgar Allen Poe was obsessed with cats and often wrote with a cat on his shoulder. One of his quotes where “I wish i could write as mysterious as a cat”(BrainyQuote.com). Poe was in the army and was a sergeant major until he was discharged. In 1848 after his wife’s death in 1847, Poe attempted to commit suicide by ingesting opiates. Due to the horrific experiences in his life had a lot to do with his writing style. Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts, January 19,1809 (Poets.org).Poe had a father and a mother who were both famous actors who died when Poe was three years old. As Poe got older he attended the University of Virginia (Poets.org).Soon after he was forced to leave because he was in gambling debt and John...
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...Romantic literature is such that an author writes in an attempt to convey his feelings on what the world should be like. It is unrealistic, unreasoning, and imaginative writing. William Cullen Bryant and Edgar Allen Poe are two examples of romantic writers. Though Poe fits the mold of a romantic writer it is obvious that his writings do not mirror those of Bryant or many other known romantic authors. His works share a uniqueness that is not found amongst the other writers, it is this uniqueness that separates Poe’s works from the rest. Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis” is a good example of romantic literature. This work compared to Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” will show that characteristics of Poe’s work that, both, make him a romantic writer and separate him from other romantic writers. “Thanatopsis”, by William Cullen Bryant, is a very romantic poem about the relationship between man and nature. Bryant’s purpose for this poem is to spread his belief that at the last hours of life man is joined with the Earth and when that last hour is over man will join all those who have passed before him. From the first two lines of the poem it is obvious that this poem is romantic in nature. “To him who in the love of Nature holds – Communion with her visible forms,” (470). Bryant personifies nature in this poem by referring to it as a “she”. He does this to establish a common thread between the reader and Earth. It is easier for someone, reading Bryant’s work, to begin believing his ideas...
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...One of the main themes of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart is madness. The main evidence of the characters madness is found in the sixteenth paragraph, the paragraph that begins, “No doubt I now grew very pale…”. This paragraph shows the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart, a man clearly insane but one claiming that he is not, attempting to function in the real world when he has lost the ability to do so. He is, at the point in time at which the paragraph begins, fully in command of the situation. The Tell-Tale Heart and Madness A hundred words or so later he is a broken man, babbling his confession to the police. Nothing of an objective nature has caused this transformation; it stems solely from his extreme (to the point of insanity) hypersensitivity. Literature term papers show that in this passage Poe employs irony and exaggeration to rather cruelly mock his character’s decent into sanity. The word “mad” does not occur in this passage, but it is found at other places in The Tell-Tale Heart and usually in a sentence that denies that the narrator is mad, e.g. “How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” More importantly, the first sentences in The Tell-Tale Heart show us the narrator admitting to being “dreadfully nervous,” but denying that that makes him insane. Clearly, the narrator has thought a great about this issue and, by mentioning it in the way that he does, has revealed to the reader one of the important dimensions...
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...Critical Essay: Elements of Literature in Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” Is a well written shorty story filled with many significant literary elements. Firstly we will write about the plot, the overall summary of the story, and the main themes, the central ideas of this tale. The plot of "The Cask of Amontillado" is a great account of vengeance. The assassin promises “revenge” upon Fortunato for an “insult.” The main theme revolves around the assassin plans to pursue vengeance in support of his family motto: "Nemo me impune lacessit. This means “no one cuts (attacks) me with impunity.” On the coat of arms of his family, which bears this motto, looks "a huge human foot d'or, in a field of azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are embedded in the heel.” Thus reflects the theme of vengeance because the assassin’s plan of revenge on Fortunato for an insult. Secondly we have characterization, the personalities of the characters of the characters produced. The true focus lies upon the assassin, the wicked Montresor. Montresor is an evil man who is happy at his chance to murder. The costume that Fortunato donned on the night of his murder was that of a jester, while appropriate...
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...Jake Hartling 12/6/15 D – Block “The Tell – Tale Heart” Response Poe builds suspense by using several “tools of tension:” repetition, unreliable narrator, and. Edgar Allen Poe starts by building tension though the use of repetition. Repetition is used to intensify the drama, heighten the conflict, and to make an overall better story. In this story, it is in the description of the heart getting louder that there is lots of repetition. Poe could have written once, the beating heart grew louder” and then he simply could have moved on, but that wouldn’t be very intense nor wouldn’t intensify the drama. Compare that to “It grew louder –louder-louder!... and now – again! – hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!” Saying it over and over like that makes the situation seem much more direr, anxious, and helps the reader feel the narrator’s distress. Repetition is a great way to intensify the conflict, make it more real to the reader, and to prioritize the storyline to reader. Poe also builds suspense by using an unreliable narrator. Poe’s use of the first person narrator helps build suspense. Poe uses first person point of view to his advantage in this story. Without the use of this point of view, “The Tell – Tale Heart” would not contain the flow and suspense it does. For example, right away our narrator addresses the reader,” True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" Here the reader is drawn right in to the story and...
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