preview

Examples Of Syntax In Tell Tale Heart

Decent Essays

Tell Tale Heart was written by Edgar Allen Poe and is about a sociopathic psychopath who murders an old man that has a red eye because it makes him angry when the old man looks at him. This short story is written in first person so that you can imagine what the narrator is explaining instead of being told exactly what is happening. Poe uses attention grabbing syntax and devices to create a mysterious and dark tone. Poe utilizes imagery and symbolism to create a dark and mysterious tone. Imagery is visually descriptive language and a symbol is something that represents something else, usually a material object representing something abstract. Poe uses imagery to create a mysterious tone and this is shown in the quote, “His eye was like the eye …show more content…

A rhetorical question is a question that does not need to be answered because it has an obvious answer. An example of this can be found near the beginning of the story, “But why do you say that I have lost control of my mind, why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad?” (Poe,64). This quote can be analyzed as the narrator being paranoid and thinking that people are judging him and questioning his sanity. The second way is that it is a question intended for the reader to ask as they read further into the story. This question is almost instantly able to be answered further in the paragraph. The narrator continues afterwards by stating that, “ I could hear sounds I had never heard before. I heard sounds from heaven; and I heard sounds from hell!” (64). From this quote, the reader can conclude that the narrator is definitely insane, as hearing sounds from heaven and hell isn’t considered “normal”, and does not support the narrator’s claim that “I have full control of my mind.” (Poe, 64) These quotes also contain elements of …show more content…

Suspense is used to make the reader feel anxious or excited about what may happen later in the story. Diction is the choice of words and phrases in a writing to make it flow more fluently. An example of suspense used in Tell Tale Heart is, “Every night about twelve o’clock I slowly opened his door. And when the door was opened wide enough I put my hand in, and then my head. In my hand I held a light covered over with cloth so that no light showed. And I stood there quietly. Then, carefully, I lifted the cloth, just a little, so that a single, thin, small light fell across that eye. For seven nights I did this, seven long nights, every night at midnight. Always the eye was closed, so it was impossible for me to do the work. For it was not the old man I felt I had to kill; it was the eye, his Evil Eye.” (Poe, 64) This is an example of suspense because the narrator is stalking the old man and watching him sleep and it is making the reader feel anxious toward what will happen. “Never before had I felt so strongly my own power; I was now sure of success.” (Poe, 64) The quote shows diction with the phrase “sure of success” which rolls of the tongue smoothly. Therefore, Poe uses diction and suspense to help enhance the experience felt by the

Get Access