† Tell Tale Heart Literary Response †

Edgar Allen Poe displays amazing imagery, an exciting plot, and a somber mood in his fabulous story, Tell Tale Heart. Tell Tale Heart is a sinister tale that is told from the narrator’s point of view, a disturbed man that has an intense longing to rid himself of the ‘evil’ eye of an old man that he dubs a friend. To rid himself of the eye, the narrator slips into the old man’s house every night and watches him. Until one night he murders the old man, crushing him under his bed, and burring him under the floorboards.

The fantastic imagery in Tell Tale Heart gives the reader a very acute vision of the various happenings of the story. Poe’s description of the eye, “He had the eye of a vulture- a pale blue eye with a film over it.” (pg.625) gives the reader an accurate image of the eye. He also describes every action in excruciating detail that you can practically see every movement. For example, “I undid the lantern cautiously- oh so cautiously (for the hinges creaked) – I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.” (pg.626)