The Tell-Tale Heart

Characters; (Main)

1. The Narrator: Except that he’s insane and a murderer. We don’t really know anything
about him, no identity, gender, or name, neither his relationship to the old man, yet they
seem close enough since he saw him every day for a week before killing him.
2. The Old Man: He’s also a passive character, no name, he has gold (rich) and unnatural
filmy blue eyes like vulture. He’s innocent victim of the narrator.

Characters; (Sub)

1. A Neighbor: Hears the old man shriek at night, suspects and contact the police.
2. The Three Policemen: investigate the report of a scream.

Setting:

 The story covers a period of approximately 8 days with most of the important actions
each night around midnight.
 The location is the home of the elderly man in an urban area in which the narrator has
become a caretaker.
 It also set in the narrators twisted mind with actions occurring in that small cramped
space.

Mood:

 The narrator speaks as if he is a madman and that really adds to the mood of the story.
 Even the first paragraph shows that the mood will be dark, “I heard many things in hell.
How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you
the whole story.”
 The main reason the dark mood is present is due to the fact that the main character killed
a man.

Tone:

 This story might not seem sad at all on the first read. Although the sadness is woven in
the nervousness we find in every line.
 The narrator is a sad figure, and it comes through in the nervous, frantic tone of the story.
He’s plagued by diseases of the mind, is in a near constant state of stress, nerves, and
meltdown.
Falling Action:

Occurs when the narrator "hears" the old man's heart beating, although he has just killed him.
The police are talking to the narrator, and he hears the beating of the dead man's heart getting
louder and louder. The narrator finally admits to what he has done and tells the police to tear up
the floorboards to find the "beating heart."

Themes:

1. Mental illnesses can lead people to do unthinkable things:

 I think the narrator has paranoid a schizophrenia based on his behaviors throughout
the short story.
 According to Melinda Smith, Lawrence Robinson, M.A and Jeanne Segal, people
who suffer mental illnesses: "They may see or hear things that don’t exist, speak in
strange or confusing ways, believe that others are trying to harm them, or feel like
they’re being constantly watched. “
 And that’s exactly what happened in our story:
"I heard sounds from heaven; and I heard sounds from hell. “
"His eye was like the eye of a vulture...”
"I killed him. But why does his heart not stop beating?"

2. You’re your worst enemy

 The narrator’s own guilt eats him alive and he ends up confusing his crime.
 He himself, is the reason he has told the police men about killing the old man. He
is his own enemy.

3. Your own mind can imprison you

 The narrator is already in jail in his own mind before he actually murders the old man.
His mind holds him captive of all of his guilt building up inside of him.

Significance of the title:

The story's title says that the heart is a "tell-tale" sign. It refers to the beating heart that
eventually drives the narrator to confess his crime. The reader is led to believe it is the beating of
the old man's heart he hears, which is impossible, since he is dead and in pieces. I think it is a
perfect title. It leaves us wondering if, in his insanity, the narrator hears the old man's heart, if he
feels guilt over the crime and hears his own heart, or a little bit of both. In all of those options,
the heart is telling the tale.