Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe is one of the
most known and historic pieces of writing. It has been being taught for as long
as I have been in school and for good reasoning. It has so many aspects to dissect
that even in today’s literature classes this piece of work could be analyzed
for a solid week. My thoughts however, when reading in college compared to
middle and high school has changed immensely. My thoughts on it reading it for
the third time were much more analytical and scholarly. I finally noticed all
of the gothic attributes that it contains. The first characteristic that I noticed
was the disturbing images that pop into your mind when reading it. For example
the line “because Death, in approaching him,” really stood because I never had
realized the severity of the passion to murder the old man. Yet, this had me
making the relation towards the gothic consistency of focusing on death. The
whole main plot of this writing is night after night waiting for the right time
to execute the murder of another living being. With this being said the setting
of this story is taking place entirely inside of a house, which also fits the characteristic
of isolated settings. However, the only suggestion I could have to make the
setting a more proper one for the situation would be to have day time stalking
events in an old run down town where the sun never shined. I believe in adding eerie
scenery would add just a bit more suspenseful drama. Other than that I believe
the description of the whole story was done very well. Moving towards the end,
I was shocked at the end when the noise he had been hearing was the beating of
the old man’s heart under the floor boards. This stood out so much because it
was an un-natural occurrence compared to most stories you’ll ever read. That is
what it makes this so unique. It also once again makes the story follow almost
to a tee the characteristics of gothic writing. When I was all said and done
reading it, I couldn’t believe that the narrator had spilled the beans to the
policeman. After analyzing this for quite some time I realized that even though
in literary terms it was on point for following a certain theme, it also fits a
moral theme. Guilt. Guilt will get the best of nearly all human beings and this
just another story of how it’s true. Poe I believe un-intentionally wanted to
portray, but it happened that way. He finished his story in a way not many
authors had done before and in the process ended up sending a moral message.
This is however, just my opinion on the ending. I believe that in thinking in
the un-like gothic literary terms that other pieces of writing like this can
un-cover other messages.
I like that you started off by talking about your different reactions to this story over time. I have always found it interesting how literature grows up with us, and depending where you are in life, it can have a very different assigned meaning based on your personal experiences that contribute to analysis.
ReplyDeleteThat being said- when thinking about why the narrator went to the police I think it is important to note that it is not just the guilt that drives him, but the confession and what leads him to it is also a reaffirmation of his insanity, which the guilt magnifies. He clearly had issues before killing the old man- but after doing so the guilt he felt fed his insanity, and created the auditory hallucination of the heart still beating under the floor.
-Emily Epker (britishlitforthewin)
Sorry--blogger ate my comment. I agree with Emily and with your perceptions, though.
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