Writing Task

You have read the short story “Tell-Tale Heart.”  Write an essay describing a characteristic of the main character and how it propels the action to the conclusion of the story.  Be sure to use specific evidence to support your response.

Student Response

“You fancy me mad.  Madmen know nothing.”  These are the thoughts of the unnamed narrator from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Tell-Tale Heart.”  The narrator spends much of the story trying to convince the audience that he is not crazy while he ironically explains a murder he has committed.  As the story ends, the narrator shouts to unknowing police what he has done.  In “Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator displays paranoia throughout the story which propels him to admit his wrongdoing at the conclusion.

In the beginning, the author portrays the narrator as paranoid through the narrator’s thoughts and actions.  The narrator begins the story by asking the audience why they would call him a madman but goes on in the second paragraph and describes his future victim as, “He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees –very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.”  Murder is not a normal action to take just to avoid something that is annoying.  The man’s eye is not the narrator’s problem; however, he feels he must kill the man so that the eye no longer bothers him.  These selfish thoughts contribute to the audience’s understanding of the narrator’s life of paranoia.

By the end of the story, the narrator’s paranoia is even more apparent as he continues to question himself.  As the police come to investigate the disappearance of the old man, the narrator begins to think he hears the old man and wonders if the police can hear him as well.  In paragraphs nine and ten, the narrator can no longer keep his composure, “And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? 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. But anything was better than this agony… ‘Villains!’ I shrieked, ‘dissemble no more! I admit the deed! –tear up the planks! here, here! –It is the beating of his hideous heart!’”  Even though the police do not seem to suspect the narrator at all, he cannot control his paranoia during their conversation.  His guilt disturbs him so much that he even thinks he can hear the dead man’s heart beating.  No longer thinking he can get away with the murder because the police surely can hear the dead man as well, he admits he killed the old man at the conclusion of the story.

Because of the narrator’s obsession, he feels he must kill the old man because of his unusual eye, but this action propels his paranoia to make him feel he can no longer get away with the murder and admit his crime at the story’s end.  Through the use of a narrator, Poe wrote a suspenseful story in which the narrator constantly questions himself leading the audience to never know what could happen next.

Writing Details

This is an 8th Grade response from a PorterHasClass 2018 student. Follow me on Twitter for other student examples, articles of the week, or blog posts.