The tale-tell heart

Context

Gothic Literature

Gothic literature emerged in the late 18th century with the publication of the 1764 novel Castle
of Otranto, written by the English novelist Horace Walpole. It is part of a larger Gothic movement
that included architecture and art. The Castle of Otranto features many of the characteristics
that would come to characterize the entire genre: a focus on the past, intense emotion,
and irrationality. Gothic literature quickly became a trend, one that was so common by the
time Poe was writing that people were parodying it.

Gothic works often featured old buildings such as medieval castles as their settings. These
locales held hidden passageways, considerable history, and secrets—often family secrets.
Gothic literature accented mystery and the supernatural. Though he did set some of his stories
in alien and exotic locations, as in "The Cask of Amontillado," Poe also modernized the Gothic
story by setting a number of his stories in urban settings and by focusing on psychological
states. Gothic literature carried in it the seeds of later popular genres: science fiction, horror, and
detective fiction. Poe was instrumental in initiating each of these genres

Poe's Life and Psychology

Some elements of Poe's life and psychology provide useful perspectives on his work. For
example, while all Gothic fiction and most horror fiction focuses on death and suffering, Poe
suffered more losses than many writers working in these genres. Both of Poe's birth parents
died in December 1811, when he was not yet three years old. The day his mother died Poe was
left alone in the house overnight with her corpse and his baby sister until an adult found them the
next day. When Poe was taken in and raised by John and Frances Allan, he was separated from
his older brother and younger sister. Nevertheless, Poe's brother, Henry, became a role model for
him. Poe imitated his writing style, named characters after him, and even incorporated his name
into one of his pen names (Henri Le Rennet). Poe's foster mother, Frances Allen, also died when
Poe was still young, and his wife, Virginia, died when she was just 25.

Scholars have attempted to diagnose Poe across time, reading the state of his psyche based
on his writing, his actions, and the reports of those who knew him. His ongoing depression
and heavy drinking may have been due in part to his lifelong financial problems as well as his
unstable family history. However, as the Edgar Allen Poe Society in Baltimore, Maryland, points
out, analyses of Poe's mental state are a matter of pure speculation, and although Poe has been
the subject of numerous biographies, many details about both his outer and inner life remain
vague. Various biographers have characterized him as everything from angelic (for example,
John Henry Ingram's glowing Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letter and Opinions, first published in
1880) to downright devilish (Rufus Griswold's obituary of Poe, which the Edgar Allen Poe Society
characterizes as "surprisingly vituperative"). Perhaps fittingly, the truth remains largely a mystery.

Character Analysis

Narrator
This narrator is never fully characterized. Poe never gives us his name or tells what his
relationship to the old man was. The two men are close enough that the narrator sees him every
day for the week before he kills him, greeting him heartily every morning; and they are close
enough that the narrator can intrude into the old man's bedroom nightly without having to sneak
into the house. It is possible they are members of the same family, or that the narrator is the old
man's servant, but readers never learn. They know only that he is passionate, unbalanced, and—if
they trust his story—a murderer.

Old Man

Like the narrator the old man is incompletely characterized—intentionally so. The narrator
mentions he has gold and that he has an unnatural and filmy blue eye like a vulture's, but neither
he nor Poe mention the old man's name. The old man is a passive character. He is rich and
seems to have some authority, but he does little in the story besides sit in bed, open his eye, and
cry out.

Neighbor

The neighbor, who never actually appears in the story, hears the old man shriek in the night.
Suspecting foul play the neighbor contacts the police to lodge a report.

Police

Three police officers come to investigate the report of a scream. The officers, who appear in the
final few paragraphs of the story, are not differentiated and don't speak. Thanks to the narrator's
calm and welcoming manner, they are at first convinced of his innocence, or so he says.
Eventually, however, the narrator confesses to them.

Summary

Note on the Narrator's Gender

The narrator's gender is never identified as it is written in the first person "I," so there are no
gendered pronouns. For the sake of readability, this study guide will refer to the narrator using
the male pronouns he, him, and his. The only clue that suggests the narrator could be male is the
line "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing." Scholars and feminists, however, continue to
debate as to whether the narrator could be female.

The Narrator's Introduction

At the start of "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator admits he is nervous but denies he is mad; he
claims his nervous condition has sharpened his senses, especially his hearing. As proof of his
sanity, he suggests that the audience observe how calmly he tells his story.

At some unidentified time in the past, the narrator comes to believe he has to kill an older man,
who is rich and who the narrator says he loved. He doesn't offer a reason for killing the older
man, but he does mention the man has one blue eye that is very disturbing: "the eye of a vulture—
a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold."

The narrator addresses the reader directly again and defends his sanity by describing his careful
preparation, sneaking into the man's room at midnight for seven nights in a row, carrying a
lantern he'd fixed so no light could get out. He cannot kill the old man, however, because it isn't
the man he wants to kill but his "Evil Eye." Each morning after having snuck in the night before,
the narrator greets the old man by name. When the narrator sneaks in on the eighth night, the
old man sits up in bed and cries out, asking who is there. The narrator doesn't answer. He hears
the old man sitting up in bed, listening for him. Eventually the narrator hears the old man give a
terrified moan.

The Murder

The narrator waits a long time. He doesn't hear the old man lie down, but he eventually decides
to risk opening the lantern a crack. When he does, the slender beam of light shines directly on
the old man's terrifying blue eye, showing it and nothing else. At that point the narrator starts
hearing the old man's heart beating. It makes him feel braver. He listens as the old man's heart
beats harder, faster, and louder, until the narrator is sure it is so loud the neighbors can hear it.
He opens the lantern and surges into the room. The old man screams, but then the narrator is
on him, dumping him on the floor and moving the bed on top of him. Eventually his heart stops
beating. The narrator is sure the old man is dead and his evil blue eye won't bother him anymore.

Again as proof of his sanity, the narrator describes the pains he went to in covering up his
crime. The narrator dismembers the old man's body, cutting off the man's head, arms, and legs,
catching the blood in a basin, then carefully tearing up the floorboards and hiding the pieces
underneath. He gleefully describes leaving no trace of evidence. Not long after he finishes at 4
a.m., there is a knock at the door. It is three police officers, who are responding to the neighbor's
complaint that he'd heard a scream. The officers ask to search the premises. The narrator
smiles and lets them in, sure there is nothing for them to see. He shows them around, then sets
out chairs for the police to sit in while they talk.

The Confession

The narrator sets his own chair directly above the place where he hid the dismembered corpse.
At first he is relaxed while they talk, chatting "singularly at ease." Then his ears begin to ring, and
he wishes the officers would leave. Eventually he realizes his ears aren't ringing. He is hearing the
old man's heart beating. It gets louder and louder, but the policemen don't seem to hear it.

The narrator tries to distract the policemen. He argues with them, raises his voice, and moves
his chair to make noise. The beating heart keeps getting louder. He becomes frantic, asking,
"Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!" He describes how they keep
smiling at him, just to torture him, as the heartbeat gets louder and louder.

The narrator eventually snaps. He screams out his guilt and tells the police where to find the
body.

Analysis

The Narrator and the Narrative

Gothic literature often uses a complicated narrative structure. It is common for stories to be
told through found manuscripts, incomplete manuscripts, overheard stories, and other devices.
The unnamed narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" fits well in this tradition. Poe gives no context for
the start of the story, though since the narrator ends the story by exposing the body of a man he
killed, he is most likely in jail for murder and talking to someone from within his cell.

However, Poe never makes clear why the narrator feels compelled to retell this incriminating
story, who this listener is, or even if the listener actually exists. (Most readers would probably
assume that anyone crazy enough to dismember a body and then hear the heart still beating is
crazy enough to tell his story to an imaginary listener.) Thus "The Tell-Tale Heart" offers a classic
example of an unreliable narrator. Even though the narrator is very specific at times (such as
when he tells how many nights he crept into the old man's room, or how the lantern lit just the
eye), readers can't trust what he says.

The narrator's sex isn't clearly indicated either; though many assume the narrator to be a man,
some have argued it is a woman. A similar ambiguity results from lack of information about the
old man: he apparently has some wealth and has a creepy, filmy blue eye, but otherwise readers
know nothing about him or his relationship to the narrator.

It seems likely that the narrator is completely unbalanced. The greatest evidence of this is when
he says there's no reason for him to have hated the old man: the man had done nothing wrong
and done nothing to him. Further evidence of his fractured mental health is evidenced in the way
the narrator's obsession shifts. He focuses first on the old man's disturbing blue eye, and then on
the beating heart. The narrator's story creates ambiguity; could a heart beat after death, or is it
merely the narrator's guilt?

The Supernatural

Setting aside the narrator's mental state, evidence of supernatural forces exists. Consider, for
example, the way the light from the lantern strikes the old man's eye and nothing else. Evidence
that the story is purely natural is actually harder to find. The entire story is markedly strange,
from the fact that the old man doesn't notice his intruder for seven nights in a row to the way
the police come in and sit down for a chat at 4 a.m. It is possible, but extremely unlikely, that
either the narrator fooled them completely and they are dodging their other duties, or they really
do suspect him and are toying with him. The story has a drifting, dreamlike (or nightmare-like)
quality, which is heightened by the fact that no one in the story is given a name but rather a
generic type (the old man, the neighbor, the police). And descriptions are intense and extreme,
adding to the nightmarish quality: the old man's eye isn't just odd it is the "eye of a vulture" and
has a film over it; the old man's bedroom isn't just dark it is as "black as pitch"; and so on.

It Was All a Dream

When the police enter, the narrator says the scream the neighbor heard was his own, in a dream.
This, along with the aforementioned dreamlike quality of the whole story, suggests another
reading: the narrator actually dreamed the whole killing. That doesn't resolve the question of his
sanity—he'd still have to be insane to think he hears a heart beating after death or confess to a
murder he didn't commit—but it changes the nature of the events and the narrator's response to
them.
What Is and Isn't Here

Ultimately Poe makes it impossible to determine any of these interpretations as definitive, and
that may be the point. Poe's theories and methods for creating the ideal short story can be
found in "The Tell-Tale Heart." For a better understanding of Poe's technique, it is essential to
understand both what is present in his story and what is missing. What's included in this story
is the entire narrative from the narrator's point of view. It tells what is important to him from his
perspective. Poe's 1846 essay "The Philosophy of Composition" focuses on poetry but argues
for a few principles that apply well here: making an artistic work the right length (no longer than
a reader can read in one sitting) and producing a unified effect, especially a unified emotional
impact. Poe also mentions how central tone is in a literary work.

What he doesn't mention there, or include in this story, are a number of things common to other
works of fiction. For example, this story lacks a traditional denouement, that stage after the
climax when the author resolves various plot threads. Instead, this story ends with the narrator's
explosive confession to the police. Since the story also lacks character names or a real motive
for the killing, the result is that the story hinges on the tension created by the narrator's emotion
and tone, which creates the unified effect Poe argues for in his essay. That also means, though,
that he does not push a specific meaning or lesson for this work. Poe's work went against a
popular form of writing in the 18th and 19th centuries called didactic fiction—a type of fiction
used to teach children morals and lessons. Rather, Poe's work uses the emotional effect of the
narrative as an end in itself. This choice aligns Poe's work not just with genre fiction, which is
often dismissed as mere entertainment, but with Aestheticism, the 19th-century movement that
championed art for art's sake
Quotes
 TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am
mad? 

Narrator

This opening line from the unnamed narrator establishes his unreliable nature right away: this is
someone who other people are calling crazy. This is also someone who thinks he knows better
than others, as evident in the distinction he makes between being "very nervous" and crazy.
The narrator's direct address also pulls at readers, engaging them in uncommon ways. Is it the
reader who the narrator suspects of thinking him mad? Why?

2.

 It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me
day and night. 

Narrator

This line from the unnamed narrator explains his obsessive fixation on the old man. It is, if one
can believe the narrator, causeless. However, as the verb haunted indicates, like a curse or ghost
in a Gothic story the narrator's thought—specifically, the thought of killing the old man—keeps
returning.

3.
 Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me.
You should have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what caution—with what foresight—with
what dissimulation I went to work! 

Narrator

This further establishes the narrator's unreliability as well as the highly dubious nature of his
sanity. His character remains consistent: he congratulates himself on his wisdom, claiming to
have a better grasp on reality than his listener (or the old man). He makes a virtue out of his
ability to deceive, and specifically to fool the old man. He also attempts to control the narrative:
the narrator tells the reader what the point is. This foreshadows his attempt to guide the police
officers in the story's final paragraphs.

4.

 And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always
closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but
his Evil Eye. 

Narrator

This statement further demonstrates the narrator's obsessive nature since he sneaks into the
room seven nights in a row, always right at midnight. His chosen hour (midnight) aligns his
insane actions with elements of the Gothic. This is a dark ritual that feels supernatural.

It also emphasizes the narrator's claim that he hates the old man due to his "Evil Eye," which is
traditionally believed to be a source of a supernatural curse.

5.

 I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. 

Narrator

This line performs multiple functions. It is another example of the narrator claiming to know
what others are thinking or feeling. This level of egotism is part of the narrator's madness and
contributes to it. His emotions are also in conflict here, as they are in other places, with pity and
amusement at war. Finally the term at heart foreshadows what will happen with the old man's
heart later in the story.

6.

 It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect
distinctness—all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones;
but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by
instinct, precisely upon the damned spot. 
Narrator

This is one of the striking lines that might suggest an unnatural or supernatural element to
the story. The description of the eye could be a product of the narrator's unbalanced psyche.
However, the image of being able to see the eye but nothing else suggests a dreamlike inversion
of power, where the old man in bed sees all and the intruder almost nothing.

7.

 Who's there? 

Old Man

This is the only thing the old man says in the story. It is a simple line, but it radically complicates
the story. The narrator regularly speaks to the old man every morning, and so the two must
be close, even intimate, like members of the same family. However, the old man does not
say something like "John, is that you?" or ask for anyone else by name. He seems completely
unaware of who could be in his room, which helps unhinge the story from the realities of daily
life.

8.

 If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took
for the concealment of the body. 

Narrator

This line further documents the narrator's madness, which takes several forms. Most simply,
the narrator addresses the reader again, reading—and misreading—his thoughts. He sees as
wisdom what is a kind of criminal pragmatism (hiding the body). This line also shows how doubt
gnaws at the narrator because he feels the need to explain and justify himself.

9.

 I smiled—for what had I to fear? 

Narrator

This brief statement shows how completely the narrator misunderstands his situation (and his
world). It strikes a note of situational irony, where expectation and reality clash, as the narrator
clearly has a lot to fear.

10.

 Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery
of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think. 
Narrator

This line demonstrates the fragmentation of the narrator's mind. Though he started the story by
arguing nothing was wrong with him and his senses were much more acute than other people's,
he here asserts the policemen can hear the sound of the beating heart and are pretending they
can't just to cause him pain.

11.

 "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! here, here!—It is
the beating of his hideous heart!" 

Narrator

This is the final line in the story. It brings the story to a sudden, dramatic close. It also
demonstrates the extent of the narrator's madness. Though he killed and dismembered an old
man due to his eye, it is the policemen, who are visiting to do their duty, who are the villains. The
old man's heart has told the tale of his murder.

Symbols

The Eye

Eyes represent perception, awareness, and truth. The narrator names the old man's eye as the
reason he has to kill him, which suggests he wants to be seen and known. Poe's references to
the eye as "evil" also suggest a commonly held belief in the supernatural ability to cast a curse
with a malevolent glare.

There are other more specific resonances to the old man's eye. The narrator calls it a vulture's
eye. Since vultures are scavengers that eat dead things, this eye signals how central death is to
the story. It also symbolizes the old man's authority. (Critics who read the narrator as female
read this authority as specifically male. This idea of the "male gaze" is part of psychoanalytic
theory.) Finally, just as the clicking insects provide a distorted imitation of the old man's heart,
so the narrator's lantern echoes the old man's eye. The first seven nights he sneaks into the
bedroom the lantern is closed, and so is the old man's eye. The eighth night, the old man opens
his eye and the narrator opens his lantern—and the actions that follow "cast light" on the
narrator's mad and murderous nature.

The Heart

As the eye represents intelligence, the heart represents emotion. The inclusion of both symbols
in the story creates a war between reason and emotion. The narrator emphasizes his own
reasoned, meticulous plotting, focusing on his ingenuity in executing and covering up his crime.
However, it is passion that drives the narrator to kill the old man (whose eye can be seen as
representing intelligence) and passion that drives him to confess. In both cases this passion is
symbolized by the heart that beats impossibly loudly.
The House

By trying to hide the body of the murdered old man beneath the floorboard, the narrator is
symbolically trying to hide the guilt of his crime in his subconscious. However, things repressed
or hidden in the subconscious always return, leaking into normal consciousness, as the dead but
pounding heart does in this story. The police can be seen as the voice of conscience, and even
though they never speak in the story the narrator's own guilt reveals itself.

Themes

Mental Health

Though the narrator clearly and repeatedly insists he is sane, his actions, motivations, and
words all demonstrate that he is not. Before killing the old man the narrator signals his mental
imbalance by sneaking into the old man's room seven nights in a row at exactly the same time.
Moreover, his lack of any actual motivation for his murderous animosity toward the old man, and
the apparent delight he takes in executing his plan, point to his extreme emotional derangement.

However, the coherence of the narrative voice pulls the reader toward the opposite conclusion.
The diction is intelligent and demonstrates thoughtfulness and insight. Until the explosive final
line ("'Villains!' I shrieked, 'dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!
—it is the beating of his hideous heart!'"), the narrator seems to have complete control of what he
does and says. He shows awareness of his own psyche, and he shows empathy even when he's
about to kill the old man. On the eighth night he sneaks into the old man's room, recognizes the
old man's moan as the "stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged
with awe," and says he "knew the sound well."

Just as many people have attempted to diagnose Poe across the decades, many critics have
attempted to pin down just what to call this narrator's condition. The entry in the Encyclopedia of
Gothic Literature calls him egocentric, "psychotic and sadomasochistic." Some have labeled him
"hysterical," while others have stopped at the more general labels of neurotic and obsessive.

Guilt

The narrator doesn't express outright guilt for much of the story. At first after the crime he
says he is relaxed and has nothing to fear, but he then "hears" the beating heart of the man he
just killed. Here the double meaning of Poe's title comes into play: the narrator thinks he hears
the heart of the old man, telling the tale of his guilt, but what he really hears is his own heart,
pounding with guilt. His actions in the last five paragraphs of the story further suggest guilt, and
then he confesses in the last line.

Confinement

The confined setting of the story serves to heighten its drama and emotion. Though the police
enter the house from the outside, the narrator literally never leaves the house (or does not
mention leaving it). He is also confined with the old man, first at close quarters with the living
man, unable to escape the man's eye, and then in the man's completely black chamber. Finally
the narrator is contained within a room where every noise magnifies his guilt, until he snaps and
confesses. He makes the site of his greatest triumph into a kind of prison cell. An argument
could also be made that the narrator is trapped within his own psyche and so can never escape.
In this he is like the dead man's pounding heart, which is confined first within the old man's body
and then in its hiding place under the floorboards.

Tension and Time

Poe uses the marking of the passage of time to increase tension. The narrator first counts the
days and marks the time at which he sneaks into the old man's room. The repeated days and the
fact that he makes a point of always sneaking in at midnight builds expectation.

Poe also uses small and specific details to build tension. On the eighth night when the narrator
enters the old man's room, he recognizes the old man is sitting up in bed listening and mentions
that he has done the same, listening to "death watches in the wall." This is a reference to insects
called deathwatch beetles that make a regular clicking sound. During the period when Poe was
writing, people thought hearing these insects meant someone in the house would die soon. The
beetles' sounds also heighten the story's sense of the supernatural: since the narrator heard
these sounds for some time it suggests that he is just acting out the old man's fate. Poe builds
on this reference in the following paragraphs, first by having the old man groan and then by
explicitly stating Death had entered the room. Deathwatch beetles also bore into wood; they
penetrate places that should be solid, much like the narrator penetrates the boundaries of the
old man's bedroom.

Poe builds on this anticipation by introducing the sound of the old man's heart. First this just
seems to be evidence of the narrator's overly acute senses, but then the heartbeat gets faster
and louder, carrying the narrator with it until he kills the old man.

Once he's killed and dismembered the old man, the house is silent for a time. When the police
arrive, though, the narrator once again hears and then feels a more powerful clock ticking: the
beating heart of the dead man. As the living heart carried him from stillness to murder, the
beating of the dead heart carries the narrator into screaming self-incrimination.

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