LITERARY ANALYSIS OF TELL TALE HEART

Running head: LITEARARY ANALYSIS OF TELL TALE HEART
Literary Analysis of Tell Tale Heart
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1LITEARARY ANALYSIS OF TELL TALE HEART
Introduction:
The short story “Tell Tale Heart” has been written by the famous author Edgar Allen Poe
and had been published in 1843. The following analysis aims to analyze the story ‘Tell Tale
Heart”, with respect to its narrative style, its structure, tone, voice and also the literary devices
that has been used.
Discussion:
The effectiveness of the story is depended upon the narrative style as well as the
structure. The entire story is told in the first person narrative, by the murderer of the old man.
The author has incorporated the narrative techniques of foreshadowing and back stories in the
tale. According to Caracciolo (2014), the barrater in the story structures the entire plot in a way
where he confesses his committed murder and tries to prove that he is innocent and not insane.
By using the first person narrative and by narrating the story through an unnamed narrator, Poe
effectively creates tension and suspicion giving the reader every authority to discover the
narrator (Abdika, 2018).
Throughout the story, there is a strange tone of excitement as the narrator is unnamed and
he narrates his pre convicted murder. As per the discussion of Amir (2018), the manner in which
he explains his deed creates a tone of anxiety all throughout and in the mind of the readers. The
readers are bound to remain unhinged. Also there is a voice of desperation in the story since the
narrator desperately tries to justify his murder, and the fact that his crime was not a result of
insanity. Thus there is an atmosphere of tension and a tone of nervousness throughout the text.