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The Tell Tale Heart Literary Analysis

Decent Essays

Developing Horror
Horror is fiction that is meant to scare or give an eerie mood. Each story develops horror is its own way. “The Tell Tale Heart” is about how an old man is murdered because of his evil vulture eye. “A Rose for Emily” is about how an old woman poisoned her lover to keep him from leaving. “The Lottery” is about how this town has a drawing to see who will be the sacrifice to the crops. Horror is developed in “The Tell Tale Heart,” “A Rose for Emily,” and “The Lottery” with many elements of horror.
First, horror is developed in “The Tell Tale Heart” by the insanity of the narrator. The narrator believes he is a sane person. He contradicted his thought by killing the old man. This creates a complex in the character’s mind, but when the police shows because the neighbors heard a yell. Then, he begins to hear the old man’s heartbeat, but the guilt consumed him and he confessed to murdering the old man and putting his body underneath the floorboards. Also, in the beginning of the story, the narrator describes why he wants to kill the old man, “It was impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night” (Para. 2). His insane idea of killing the old man because of his vulture eye pops into his thoughts without a preconceived notion of doing so. The murder is premeditated and thought out as each night he cracks the door open and glares the lantern directly at the vulture eye. The insanity of the narrator develops “The Tell Tale Heart” into horror.
Next, horror is developed in “A Rose for Emily” by the southern gothic elements. Emily’s psychological issues depict a twisted turn in the story. When Emily keeps her father’s body in her house for three days after he died, it sets up for a future turn of events. After she dies, the town women go to her house, but when they get to her house and go inside; they discover her lover petrified in the upstairs room. “The man himself lay in the bed. For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin” (Para. 58), Homer, her lover and husband to be, was dead in the bed. Emily poisoned him because she did not want him to leave again, so she could keep him forever. She is

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