Written Analysis: Edgar Allan Poe Atmosphere
The Tell-tale Heart, the narrator claims the calm sanity which clashes with his murderous tale. Poe was a master in creating suspense. He creates suspense using foreshadowing,mystery, dilemma and reversal.
In the story Poe feels a sense of being lonely,dark and spooky. It says in the story “true! nervous– very, very, dreadfully nervous i had been and am! ” This tells loneliness and how left to deal with emotions with himself left him both scared and uneasy.Edgar Allan Poe uses terror, dreadful, shrieked and hideous filled with fear and horror and all this four words are words that are not used lightly when describing something. Edgar Allan Poe creates using foreshadowing, mystery, dilemma, pace and reversal. The dilemma in the story is he hides the body, police investigates, raising the question, will they find the body.
The reversal, he thinks he will protect him that leads him to reveal him to reveal himself.In the story it says ” if still you think me mad you will think so no longer when i describe the wise precautions i took for the concealment for the body. Poe uses “hinges creaked” to put us in that state of mind that senses of impending doom and terror as the narrator silently enters the room. It effects the readers as hinges creak is commonly associated with haunted. As pace in the story it increases and moves faster as the sentences are much shorter, normally including two or three words.The Tell-tale Heart is a dark story that tells a man who kills but is tormented by the murder and Poe used symbolism to build suspense through his ablitly to demonstrate the mastery of descriptive words that paint a picture.
Throughout the story the police comes the low drone of the heart beats and when the police questions him , that is own guilt drives him near the brink of insanity because of the hearts beating faster and faster with each passing minute.The Tell-tale Heart uses symbolism to describe the protagonists own tell-tale heart. Edgar Allan Poe was a master in creating suspense in short stories. It was very important in the story in keeping the atmosphere alive so that the readers stay interested in the story. The story uses certain words and phrases that give off the sense of being evil and dark. Without the use of point of view, this story wouldn’t contain the clarity and suspense it does.
