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The Heart In Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell Tale Heart

Decent Essays

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” was one of the author’s early works. It’s a chilling confession of murder by the narrator, who seems to show no discernable reason or remorse for his actions. There’s many elements to this story, but one that’s often repeated is the sound of a heartbeat. While he’s waiting to commit the murder, he hears the heart. During the murder and after, he hears the heart. This is such a central part to his story that he mentions it multiple times, and describes how loud it grows. The sound grows so loud that he seems to go insane and cause a scene with the police officers. Many see the heart as a sign of guilt, but in this case it represents a need for a person or their ideas to be acknowledged; a want for awareness to be brought to their actions, ideas, emotions, wants. The narrator waits patiently for his victim, the old man, to fall asleep many nights in a row. On the night he commits his gruesome murder, the narrator hears “a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton” (Poe). The narrator admits he knows that sound, but says it’s the old man’s heart, that his enhanced senses allow him to hear his victim’s heartbeat. The narrator keeps hearing the heart as he waits, until the moment before he strikes. He’s worried someone might hear and that spurs him to strike. The old man is killed, but the sound of the heart persists for several minutes. “This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall”

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