The Tell-Tale Heart

In "The Tell-Tale Heart," Edgar Allan Poe uses irony to enhance the story. The narrator insists on his sanity while describing his meticulous plan to commit murder, which is inherently irrational....

The supernatural element in "The Tell-Tale Heart" appears to be the old man's heartbeat continuing after his death. However, this can be explained naturally as the narrator's own heightened heartbeat...

The narrator knows he sounds crazy, so he continually tries to convince the reader that he isn’t. The narrator of the story is a madman.  Like many madmen, he knows, but tries to convince...

There are several possibilities. Either the narrator hears, or thinks he hears, the heart of the old man he has murdered; or it is his own heart, or his own pulse, he hears beating in his ears; or...

It is ironic that the old man fears robbers and intruders when his most dangerous enemy is the mentally deranged narrator living alongside him. In Poe's classic short story "The Tell-Tale Heart,"...

This sentence in "The Tell-Tale Heart" is best described as both ironic and suspense building. It is ironic in that, while the speaker intends it to help establish his sanity, it demonstrates his...

At the beginning of the story, the narrator asks,  "(B)ut why will you say that I am mad?" So one of the reasons for telling the story is to show that he is sane. He says he is sane...

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator's careful planning only results in his own undoing. His guilt over his crime, which he has tried to hide from anyone who will listen, is what...

The way in which the narrator, initially at least, manages to satisfy the police when they come knocking on his door is by coming up with a convincing lie which is supported by the appearance of...

The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is crazy; however, he repeatedly tries to tell readers that he is completely sane:  How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I...

I'm not sure what you mean by "come to reason," but I can answer the first question.  For me there isn't a single most ridiculous statement, but a reoccurring statement that happens over and...

The central idea shared by these two stories is that it is impossible to escape death.  In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator develops an aversion to the old man's "vulture eye," a...

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator initially reacts calmly to the police, feeling confident that he has committed the perfect crime by hiding the old man's body beneath the...