1. The Tell-tale Heart
By Edgar Allan Poe

2. Anticipation Guide
Part I: Describe 5 things you expect to find in scary stories. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

3. Part II. Read the following statements and decide whether you agree or disagree.
People who are insane always know that they are insane.
Sane people sometimes imagine that they hear things.
If you commit a major crime, sooner or later you will be caught.
When you’ve done something wrong, it’s agony to wonder if you’ll be caught.
All people share the same fears.

4. Vocabulary haunted furious passion intense vulture seized film corpse
triumph foul play
shutters paced
muffled

5. Vocabulary (page 16) haunted: (verb) come back again and again, often
in a scary way
passion: (noun) a very strong or deep feeling
vulture: (noun) a bird of prey
film: (noun) a thin coat of something
triumph: (noun) an important success
shutters: (noun) wooden window covers that
swing open and shut

6. Vocabulary (continued/page 16)
muffled: (adjective) less loud, as if covered up
furious: (adjective) very angry
intense: (adjective) very strong
seized: (verb) grabbed suddenly
corpse: (noun) a dead body
foul play: (noun) dishonest behavior, murder
paced: (verb) walked back and forth again and
again

7. Edgar Allan Poe
Virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller
Ran up gambling debt and could not finish school – went into the army instead (engagement broke off)
Wrote short stories and poetry too

8. Questions to think about while reading the story:
1. How would you describe the character telling the story?
2. How does the first sentence create suspense?
3. Why do you believe he mentions TIME so much, and why he changes the pace from slow to fast?

9. Questions continued . . .
4. What are some of the evil words that he uses, and what effect do these words have on you, the reader?
5. How does he make the “evil eye” sound disgusting? (What words does he use?)

10. Questions continued . . .
6. Why does Poe have the murderer tell the story?

11. Point of View
This story is told in first-person point of view. The first-person narrator is a wonderful way to tell a story because it makes the story seem more believable, and the reader really gets to know the character. However, the story s limited to that person’s point of view. The narrator in this story is unreliable because we know from the beginning that he is insane.