Thursday, July 14, 2011

THE TELL_TALE HEART

THE TELL_TALE HEART
The story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is written by American story writer, poet and critic-Edgar Alla n Poe. In the story, the writer has presented the minute details in different ways of mystery and leads the readers to the unhappy ending or tragic end.
In the story, there are two characters, one an old man and a boy, narrator. Their relationship is anonymous. The narrator says that people may think he is mad, but he is not because he can tell everything calmly and chronologically. The story is in first person narration which is narrated by an unnamed person, a boy, who is suffering from nervous disease which causes” over acuteness of the sense.” The old man with whom the boy lives has a clouded pale blue” vulture like” eyes which distresses the boy. So that, he plots to kill the old man in order to get treat from vultureous eyes of the old man. To kill the old man he spent eight nights. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man’s room and finds the eyes always closed which makes him impossible to do the work.
On the eighth night, the old man awakes and sits up in his bed while the narrator performs his nightly rituals. The narrator does not draw back and decides to fire his lantern. A single ray of light shines out on the eyes of old man which are wide open. When he sees the eyes he is caught by the nervous disease. He decided to strike and chop up the body and he does. When he kills the old man, the pieces of the body are kept under the floor board. The narrator makes certain to hide all the signs of the crime but the screaming of an old man causes a neighbour to call the police. The narrator invites three police officers to look around. He was confident that they will not find any evidence of the crime. They visited around the house and even entered into the room where the crime was performed but unable to find any sign of the crime. They suspect nothing.
The narrator, however, begins to hear a faint noise. As the noise grows louder the narrator comes to the conclusion that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming from under the floor board. The sound increases, though the officers seem to pay no attention. Because of the constant beating of the heart, he thinks that the officers are too aware of the sound. The narrator confesses the crime of killing the old man and tells the police officers that to tear up the floor board to conquer the body. At last he tells the police his secret of killing the old man.
Thus, the story shows the struggle between imagination and signs. In the story, the old man represents the scientific rational mind and the narrator is the imaginative.

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