The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe – Book Review
Last Updated on December 2, 2016
The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. The story chronicles the life situation of an unnamed psychological character, who is the narrator. The story is all about the sanity of the narrator and his secret murder of an old man.
About the Author :
Edgar Allan Poe is an American writer and literary critic. He is best known for his short stories and poetry. Most of his tales focus on mystery and horror. He has contributed a lot to science fiction and introduced detective fiction genre in his literary works. Poe was born in Boston and brought up in Virginia by his adoption parents. Some of his notable collections of poems are The Raven (1845), Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), and more.
About the Book :
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart was published in1843. The story is one of the most famous works of Poe and belongs to the Gothic fiction genre. The story lacks particular details about both the main characters, but still establishes the needed engagement.
The narrator of the story is the murderer. He says that he has an intense urge to kill his neighbor old man. The hallucinations of the narrator are due to his insanity. He obsesses over the ‘vulture’ eye of the old man and is impelled to kill him. Even though he is insane, hides the corpse cleverly from the authorities and neighborhood. Even though he acts as normal as an ordinary man, his guilt haunts him. When the psychological madness within him intensifies, he senses paranoid delusions in his room. He hears a heartbeat noise, which he thinks to be of the old man’s. The noise increases further, driving him completely insane. As a result, he couldn’t bear the sound anymore and finally confesses his murder to the authorities. He reveals the corpse to them and surrenders.
The story’s depicts the psychological disability of the narrator as the cause for the murder. The entire concept of the story is attributed to the obsession and mental conflict within the narrator’s mind and how it causes him to do atrocious deeds. Moreover, the narrator’s obsession with the old man’s imperfection is the driving force for the murder and insanity. The author tries to convey that psychological illness is a serious threat to the society. However, in today’s notion, this is an unacceptable or totally intensified concept.