Analysis
This section highlights the main elements of our analysis of the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.
The story’s plot structure features narrative techniques such as backstories and foreshadowing. The text features the confession of a man who tries to prove that he is not insane by explaining how he committed a premeditated murder.
The main character of the story is an unnamed narrator. The old man he kills and the police officers are secondary characters.
The setting of the events is a house in an unspecified city, adding to the story’s sense of mystery.
The events are described by a first-person narrator. The narrator is unreliable, as he is clearly mentally ill and further describes himself as having supernatural senses. We therefore cannot know whether the sound of the heartbeat is real or not.
The language is written in a formal style with little dialogue, and is written as a monologue or a confession made in retrospective. One of the most important symbols is the old man’s vulture eye, a symbol of the conflict between the narrator's mind and heart.
You can find a full analysis of the story in the following pages.