In the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allen Poe, Poe displays the point of view from an appearing psychotic madman. At the start of the story, the narrator is apparently challenging the reader with the notion that he is most definitely not insane. He recounts a murder story to prove that he is completely sane. The story starts with the narrator living with an old man whom he loves dearly, although the old man’s “evil” eye vexes him. The “evil” eye causes the narrator extreme discomfort to look upon, so much that he devises a plan to murder the old man and rid himself of the evil eye. Throughout the story, Poe uses the literary devices of repetition and dramatic irony to create a worrisome mood.
The author uses repetition several times to create a worrying mood in the short story The Tell-Tale Heart. For example, on line 22, the narrator says, “And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in!” The narrator’s repetition of the word “closed” creates an unsettling feeling. This feeling is intensified by the narrator boasting about how “cunningly I thrust in my head”. When the narrator acts like he finds the idea of someone carefully stalking someone else humorous, the uncomfortable feeling transforms into worry. The narrator appears unstable, thus making the reader feel worried. Further along into the story, on line 26, the author says “It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously –cautiously (for the hinges creaked)” The repetition of the word cautiously creates the worried mood. The mood is intensified by the narrator challenging the reader about possibly questioning his sanity. When he proudly enunciates about how carefully he opened the lantern, it appears that the narrator is insane, thus making the reader worried about the old man’s safety. Deeper into the story, on lines 109-110 the narrator states “I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye –not even his –could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out –no stain of any kind –no blood-spot whatever.
I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all –ha!” By repeating the “c” sound, Poe intensifies the mood by showing how carefully and methodically the narrator crafts the words as he says them, causing the reader feel that the narrator cannot be stopped if he is truly this scrupulous. Poe further intensifies the mood by showing the narrator brags about how he “replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye –not even his –could have detected anything wrong”. When he brags about how warily he dismembered the corpse and how “A tub had caught all”, it makes the reader worry about having a serial killer on the loose, possibly killing others in similar fits of insanity, if he is not caught.
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Throughout the story, Poe uses dramatic irony to convey a worried mood in his short story The Tell-Tale Heart. On lines 57-61, when the narrator is creeping up on the old man in the dead of night, the narrator states “I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not.” The narrator’s use of dramatic irony in the quote creates a feeling of worry.
The feeling is heightened by the narrator’s sadistic approach towards the old man’s discomfort. When the narrator says that he “chuckled at heart” when he realized that the old man was terrified, it seems that the narrator is a complete psychopath, thus making the reader worried for the old man’s safety. Farther downstream into the story, on lines 125-126, the narrator tells the reader, “while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.” In this quote, the narrator uses dramatic irony to strengthen the feeling of worry. The feeling is further sharpened by the narrator’s self-confidence, and thinking he is invulnerable to the police and the law. When the narrator says “which reposed the corpse of the victim,” by saying the word “victim”, he knows that he is a murderer and it is wrong to murder, and yet does not show any guilt, thus making the reader realize that the narrator is insane. It also makes the reader worried for the safety of society when the narrator has no regret or apparent conscience interference with him killing people.
From this analysis, one can see that the author uses repetition and dramatic irony to convey a worried mood.
