The Tell-Tale Heart- Characters Edgar Allan Poe

The Narrator… What do we know about him/her? Why do we call the Narrator a him?

WE know... He is a “dreadfully nervous” wreck as the story begins. At this point do we feel sorry for him? Even as the story begins he seems paranoid and mentally ill. He seems to be isolated in the world.

We learn that he suffers from some form of insomnia and that he is a murderer. -Do you think that the reason the audience is left in the dark, with regards to his identity, is because he is a murderer? To find any details about him we are forced to read deeply into what he says- to read between the lines.

Reading between those lines… There is only one word in the entire story that we could base an argument for our narrator being a male upon. Can you find it? Are there other reasons we make this assumption?

“You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing” This is the closest we can get to evidence that our narrator is male. So what is it that makes us assume that he is a he? Actions? Characterisation?

Why not leave? This is a question we have asked our selves a number of times in class, from the little evidence we are given in the text we can only assume that it would be difficult to leave the Old Man and that, in the narrator’s eyes at least, the only way to escape the eye. However, even under these circumstances, the narrator seems abnormal and, to some of us, frightening because he seems to enjoy his stalking behaviour, spying on the Old Man for seven nights prior to the murder.

“I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph “I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds and thoughts.” The process through which he stalks the eye seems so very strange and creepy. The narrator seems to take a lot of pleasure in it. It all seems very perverse. But what does that mean? Use a dictionary and find a meaning- you may be surprised.

The Mysterious Illness… If you to one of those ‘what is wrong with me’ self-diagnosis medical sites and type in ‘hyper sensitive hearing’ you will get the following diagnosis: Tinnitus. Tinnitus is an auditory condition that can be caused by a number of things including: tumours, sinus infection, loud noises and misaligned jaw joints or muscles. The result is that those suffering from the illness can have auditory hallucinations, sensitivity to sound and possibly amplified hearing… sound familiar?

The Sothern Gothic Tradition Poe has often been labelled a ‘Southern Gothic writer’ meaning he was a writer whose work dealt with issues and anxieties over slavery in the Southern states. Does Tell-Tale Heart belong to this category? Could the narrator be a slave and the old man his owner?

The details that we are given about the old man are few but what we do know is that he has a blue eye. While blue eyes are not exclusively caucasian the majority are- so on this assumption we could assume that the old man is white. (Note that the reference to the colour of the old man’s eye is the only reference to colour in the story.)

If we conclude that the old man was in fact a slave owner then perhaps the reason our narrator dislikes it so much is that it looks upon him as a possession. This interpretation may also explain why the narrator is nervous- he has probably been mistreated his whole life. It may also explain why he is so excited about his violation of the old man’s privacy. We will never know for sure if this is Poe’s intention but if the narrating character were a slave would it change your perception of him?

The OLD MAN If it is possible, the old man is even more mysterious than the narrator- partly because we only see him through the lens of our narrator. But, we do know that the old man has money as the narrator seems to take pleasure in showing of his treasures to the three Police officers. We know he has blue eyes, one of which now has a cataract. We know he is old. We know he usually sleeps fairly soundly.

Trusting? Our narrator believes that the old man knows nothing of his night-time activities in the week before his death. He does continue to leave his bedroom door unlocked so we can assume he trusted the narrator. However, we know the old man is not usually so trusting as he seems to fear robbers or similar.

Mad?? BY our definition no BUT consider the narrator’s- he describes madmen as 1. knowing nothing and 2. having impaired senses. We can assume that the old man does have dulled senses as he does not hear the narrator’s visits until the eighth night. He seems incapable of defending himself. This does suggest that the old man maybe senile and therefore dependent on the care of the narrator.

Alienated/isolated… Someone outside the house seems to have been suspicious about what was going on inside the house as the police are quickly called after a scream is heard. There suspicions must also have been creditable as not one or two but three police are sent to investigate. So who was the mysterious neighbour suspicious of? The old man is an alienated figure within and outside of the home and therefore we could see his murder as symbolic of something much larger- of prejudices and abuse that arise out of physical differences.