Can anyone explain "The Tell-Tale Heart" to me?

"The Tell-Tale Heart" whose title means "tattle-tell," is a story of psychological horror.  The narrator, a madman, kills a man and boasts of his skill in doing so without detection.  However, in his madness, the narrator believes that he hears the heart of the dead man beneath the floor boards where the narrator has buried his victim.  Obsessed with this "sound," which is probably the nervous beating of his own heart, the madman tears at the floor boards and cries out, "Disemble no more!" giving himself away to the police who have entered his house in order to investigate a shriek heard outside.

Of course, all the horror emanates from the mind of the narrator who becomes fixated upon the eye of the old man whom he claims to love.  But the filmed eye, like that of a vulture, he blames for his killing of the old man.  Also, the old man intuitively senses that some horror awaits him as he sits up in bed, groaning, long before the narrator attempts any harm. This interweaving or "arabesque" as Poe termed it, of symbols that change in meaning (the lantern, the eye) has led the critic James Gargano to believe that the story is a doppelganger. A doppelganger is an apparitional twin or counterpart to another living person.  That is, Poe's narrator and the old man are both of the mind of the narrator, who projects his terror and shares his terror.  This is why the narrator "hears" the beating of the heart of the dismembered, buried old man.

See the links below which will help with this concept of doppelganger.

What does the title "The Tell-Tale Heart" signify?

The title "A Tell-Tale Heart" refers to the constant sound of the heart beat that the narrator hears after he has murdered the old man.  The heart beat basically comes from the narrator's guilt-ridden conscience and leads him to turn himself in.

What does the title "The Tell-Tale Heart" signify?

The resolution of the narrative occurs when the narrator, prompted by the incessant sound of a beating heart, can no longer contain his ever-increasing sense of guilt. The title signifies that guilt; the beating heart is a metaphor for the guilt.  Enotes has an excellent explanation of the entire short story,

What does the title "The Tell-Tale Heart" signify?

The term "tell-tale" is probably old-fashioned and completely out of use today. A synonym commonly heard in schools is "tattletale." Roget's Thesaurus contains many synonyms, including "informer," "stool pigeon," "fink," "rat," and "whistleblower." The idea Poe wanted to convey in the title was that the sound of the beating heart informed on the murderer and caused him to be apprehended. It is hard to think of what adjective Poe might substitute for "tell-tale" if he were writing the story today. He might call it "The Double-Crossing Heart," "The Betraying Heart," or "The Judas Heart." (On the other hand, he might just keep his origijnal title.) The sound, of course, was purely imaginary. It was most likely the murderer's own pulse he was hearing because he was feeling nervous and his heart was beating abnormally fast and raising his blood pressure. 

What does the title "The Tell-Tale Heart" signify?

The title acts as a bit of foreshadowing for this story because it is ultimately what gives the narrator away. He commits a murder and driven mad by what he believes is the heart of the murdered man beating beneath his floor. When the police arrive to investigate the crime, they are not there to arrest him, but he has already begun to be driven crazy by the sound of the murdered man's heart. The title then comes from his admission of guilt and plead to pry up the floorboards to reveal his crime. The heart will tell the tale of his crime- hence the title "A Tell-Tale Heart".

What does the title "The Tell-Tale Heart" signify?

The unnamed narrator lives with an old man who has a spookily cloudy eye.  The narrator appears to be crazy.  He puts up with the old man for a long time, but the eye drives him further and further over the edge of insanity.  Finally, one day, he murders the old man and buries his body under the floorboards.  When police come to investigate (neighbors had complained of strange sounds coming from the house), the narrator believes he hears the old man's heart thumping beneath the floor.  It sounds so loud to him that he confesses, screaming at the police:  ‘‘I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!’’

It is called "The Tell-Tale Heart" because the heart, he believes, has betrayed him and told of the narrator's crime.

How does "The Tell-Tale Heart" represent a horror story?

Poe utilizes various elements commonly found in horror stories to depict how a deranged murderer kills a helpless old man in the middle of the night and proceeds to dismember his body before eventually confessing his crime to authorities after experiencing overwhelming guilt. By making the mentally-unstable murderer the narrator of the story, Poe gives the reader access into the mind of a madman, who continually attempts to prove his own sanity as he recounts his horrifying tale. The narrator's dark diction, staccato sentences, and neurotic nature contribute to the eeriness of the story.

Poe includes numerous Gothic elements that contribute to the horror story genre, which include the ominous, threatening mood, the old man's Evil Eye, the brutal crime, the nighttime setting, and present element of fear throughout the story. Similar to many horror stories, the readers experience suspense and mystery as the narrator waits to attack the old man on the eighth night as he stands still in his room. The reader can sympathize with the helpless old man, who is defenseless in his sleep.

The gory nature of dismembering the body and the narrator's mental instability are also Gothic elements that contribute to the horror of the story. The incessant beating of the dead man's heart also builds suspense as the reader anticipates the madman confessing his crime. The dead man's heart beating also adds a supernatural element, which is commonly found in horror stories. Overall, Poe's classic story comprises of numerous Gothic elements that tell the story of a madman's heinous crime, which is unsettling, horrifying, and suspenseful.

How does "The Tell-Tale Heart" represent a horror story?

"The Tell-tale Heart" is a horror story, in part, because its subject is murder and madness. But a story can be about murder and madness without being a horror story. Poe's tale has other traditional horror story attributes, such as a nighttime setting in a dark, creepy house that has only two occupants and in which the ordinary world is distorted in unsettling ways.

Horror is often a component of the gothic genre in which Poe wrote. In the gothic, the ordinary or homey becomes unheimlich, a German word which means unhomelike, eery, or creepy. We feel a sense of horror in the story because the narrator, while pretending—or perhaps believing—he is normal, shows he is in the grip of an irrational madness. An ordinary house becomes an arena of horror as the narrator's nightly loathing of the old man's "evil" eye causes him to murder the man, then bury the body under the floorboards.

The sense of eeriness and unease that creates horror increases as the narrator is convinced he hears the heart of the dead man beating louder and louder under the floorboards and becomes convinced the police are mocking him by pretending not to hear it.

The setting and the story being told from the point of view of a madman add to the plot to create a sense of horror. We would certainly run, not walk, from that house and that narrator.

How does "The Tell-Tale Heart" represent a horror story?

Poe's story is a horror story both psychologically and physically.  Psychologically, we see the results of madness, how the mind can become so convinced of being persecuted that violence, and even murder, are justifiable.  You see this in the first paragraph of the story.  The narrator says, "The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them."   Despite his claims, it is clear that in his madness, he has convinced himself that the old man with whom he lives is out to get him. 

Other ways Poe creates an aura of horror is through his descriptions of the old man's "vulture eye":  "It was open -- wide, wide open  -- and I grew furious as I gazed upon it.  I saw it with perfect distinctness -- all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow of my bones."  Even worse is his description of the murder:  "The old man's hour had come!  With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.  He shrieked once -- once only.  In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him.  I then smiled gaily."  The horror continues as he conceals the body in the under the floor boards. 

The tale returns to the psychological as the narrator's madness makes him think he hears the old man's heart beating under the floor boards, a sound that becomes so loud in his head that he confesses his crime. 

How does "The Tell-Tale Heart" represent a horror story?

Typically, the horror story genre will draw upon a reader's fear of the unknown, create a sense of dread, and include extreme acts of violence. Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" meets all of these criteria.

The fear of the unknown is encapsulated by the narrator's seeming lack of a convincing motive. He professes to murdering the old man, who he supposedly "loved," and who had "never wronged" him, merely because the old man had "the eye of a vulture." The narrator says that whenever he saw the old man's eye his "blood ran cold" and that he decided to murder the old man to "rid (him)self of the eye forever." However, the narrator seems to stumble upon this motive. Trying to offer the reader a motive, after admitting that the old man had "never wronged" him, he says, "I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!" Thus, the narrator's real motive, if indeed he ever even had one, remains unknown, and the murder is all the more horrifying because it seems motiveless.

There is also at the beginning of the story a sense of dread, as the narrator describes the painstaking preparations he took before carrying out the murder. He describes how he would, every night for a week before the murder, "oh so gently" open the old man's door and move in "slowly—very slowly." He also describes how, on the night of the murder, he opened the old man's door, "little by little," and then waited by the old man's bedside "For a whole hour." This slow, methodical build up to the description of the murder builds a sense of dread in the reader.

The horrifying, extreme act of violence is of course the murder itself and the immediate aftermath. The narrator describes how he "dragged" the old man from his bed, to the floor, and then "pulled the heavy bed over him." He then describes how he "dismembered the corpse," cutting off "the head and the arms and the legs." This gruesome act of violence is horrifying, and all the more so because of the gleeful, unrepentant tone of the narrator's description.

What could be an alternative title for "The Tell-Tale Heart"?

I would agree that your choice should be linked to the parts of the story which impact on you the most. I would select from "The Vulture Eye", 'The Madman in the Darkness", "Retribution", "The Pulse" or "The Tortured Man". The last suggestion could be ambiguous: both the old man and the narrator are tortured in the story.

What would be an alternative title for "The Tell-Tale Heart"?

How about: 'Be Still, My Beating Heart'?  This title says it all.  It names the heart, which is the central object of importance in Poe's short story.  It also commands that heart to be still, which, if that truly happened would signify death.  Therefore, it matches the idea of the murder in the story.  'Be still, my beating heart,' also means that the heart is pulsing rapidly because it is excited in some way (be it love, happiness, anxiousness, or fear).  So this fits the story because the murderer is certainly anxious and paranoid about having killed another man.

What is "The Tell-Tale Heart" about and what symbols can be found?

The best way to do this is to read through the story, and try to shrink each paragraph down into one or two simplified sentences that summarize the main point of each. I'll give a brief summary below, along with links that will lead you to the story itself so that you can do a more detailed summary; space doesn't allow it here.

There is a man who becomes obsessed with an old man in his building with one bad eye that is filmed over.  He compares the eye to a vulture (a symbol of impending death and watchfulness) and learns to hate the eye so much that he ends up wanting to murder the old man.  He goes to the old man's room at night, opens the door a bit until his lantern can see the old man, and just watches him.  One night the old man awakes in the darkness, and the narrator goes in very stealthily and kills him.  He buries him under the floorboards in his dwelling.  The police come and start questioning him about the old man; the narrator is so confident in not getting caugh that he asks them in and sits down right on top of where the man is buried.  But then he hears what he feels is the old man's heart beating beneath the floorboards.  The beating gets louder and louder; the narrator is certain that the police can hear it!  He finally, when the beating is so loud he can stand it no longer, confesses.  The beating heart noise is a symbol of his own conscience for having murdered the man.

How does the title of "The Tell-Tale Heart" foreshadow its events?

The title of Poe's story foreshadows the demise of the narrator who suffers from psychological terror of the consequences of time. For one thing, the sound of the title mimics the ticking of a clock as well as the beat of a heart. At any rate, this beating of the heart symbolizes the persistence of time that the narrator is unable to stop.

In addition, the title of this story also foreshadows much of the repetition that prevails throughout the narrative. Moreover, the repetitions in the story become clues to the mystery. For, besides the repetition of the old man's eye, there are two other repetitions: the concept of time and the narrator's claim that he loves the old man. Therfore, the narrator has a certain identity shared with the old man, so when he kills the old man in order to be rid of the "vulture eye," death is not the end of the narrator's terror. Instead, his own heart, aligned with the old man and their shared terror of time, becomes the "tell-tale heart," and in his psychological torture, the narrator confesses,

Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! 

Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! here, here!—It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

It is, ironically, the beating of the narrator's own heart that tattles on him, not that of the old man, for, in killing the old man's eye, the narrator's "I" yet remains afterwards to answer the beating of his own "tell-tale" heart.

Define the title of "The Tell-Tale Heart."

Edgar Allan Poe is the master of thriller stories and horror stories. He focuses on the macabre in his writing.

The Tell-Tale Heart tells us that something about this story is going to involve a type of tattle tale.  It might be a romance, but based on what we know about Poe's history, we can presume that it will not be a romance as we understand it. We might presume that the conscience or "heart" tells on itself.

The title almost gives away the plot.  But we don't know whose heart is beating until the very end of the story.