English II Composition and

Communication
ASSIGMENT NO 4
Review of the short story: "The Tell-Tale Heart"
Group Members
F2022332020 Tehreem Ghulam Nabi
F2022332030 Aliza Ali
F2022332012 Tayybha Sikandar
F2022332052 Muqadas Iftikhar
Introduction
The short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” written by Edgar Allan Poe is a
thriller and suspense kind of story. It’s a story of a psychopath man who killed an
innocent rich old man just because of his pale blue, creepy eye, with a glazy film
over it. So mainly it is because of that predatory eye, the man became a murderer
and villain of the story.

Summary
This story is about the murder that the man committed because of the
creepy eye of the old man. And surprisingly the murderer has no regret over it. No
doubt the he loved old man and he has no desire of the old man’s gold. Only
problem is that predatory eye. Before the day of murder, every night he came to
the old man’s house and lit the lantern off so that old man was can’t disturb. He
gazed the old man’s eye and went away. On the day of murder, he came and
repeated the same procedure. But when a dim ray of the light that is like a thin
and long web of a spider fell upon the eye, the desire to kill the old man arose to
its peak for the man. Now the old man ‘s hour had come. He at Last he killed the
old man and put the heavy bed over him and when the victim stopped moving he
cut off his head, arms and legs and settle the body under the planks of the floor.
As the murderer was doing his duty and vanishing all the traces of the murder,
the bell rang and there were three officers at the door. One of the neighbors
complained about the shriek sound made by old man while murdering hum. He
welcomed the officers with open Heart and allowed them to search the place and
there was nothing. On settling down for a talk, a mysterious sound came into the
ears of the murderer, and it was the sound of the old man’s heartbeat. The sound
became louder and louder. Now a new mission arose for the villain of the story i.e
how will he convince the officers about his wrongdoing.

Review/discussion
I like this short story of Edgar Allan Poe because as we see a very little content of
this type of stories in our English literature books. Beside poetry, literature and
moral contents we need some sort of these thriller stories to fresh and sharpen
our minds.

 Language
When we come on language of the story it was quite difficult for
us to understand many words like kinder, undid, raved and many others. On
reading one to three times we came up with the whole scene of murdering
the old man.
 Length
The length of the story is nice and readable. We think the length
should be increased as the ending of the story is not complete.
 Description
The description of the story was not that complete. The writer
just said that the man murdered the old man just because of his creepy
eye. He does not describe further why he dislike the eye and what’s the
real reason behind it. May be he is a psychopath and some other reasons
behind the murder.
 Characters
The characters of the story were the man who is a killer, an old
man who is being murdered and three officers. Characters of the story
were also not well prescribed, their names, exact age of them. The
relationship between them were also not well described, how the
murderer came to know about the old man.
 Storyline
The storyline of the story “The Tell-Tale Heart “was pretty good.
As the story was about thriller and suspense, many youngsters and other
people of ages like these types of stories and even for us the story was very
interesting except one the ending should also be added.
 Confusing and clear elements:
As the story is about the suspense so it contains
many confusing elements like real cause of the murder and what did the
officers do with the man on hearing the voices of the victim at the last. The
clear element in the story is only how the villain of the story murder the
old man. As the whole scene of the murder is well described.
  The starting and ending of the chapter:
The starting of the story is not fully
complete for us as it does not contain any information about what is the
whole scenario of the story, the story must start with the brief introduction
of both characters of the story. The ending of the story is also not complete
they don’t tell us about does the officers came to know about the murder
and the dead body? What’s the next of the killer when officers came to
know about the murder? It is still a question.
 Themes:
Now come to themes its murder sort of story where a man
become so furious to see creepy eye of an old that he ended up in
becoming a murderer and villain of the story.
 Symbols:
Symbols used in the story were like the writer compares ray
of light as the thin thread of the spider and the heartbeat of the old man as
watch that was enveloped in the cotton, the slow movement of his steps as
the minute hand and many other symbols.
 Grammar:
The grammar that was used in the story was the past tense
because the writer is describing the story and it happened in the past.
 Sentence Structure:
The sentence structures were quite complex because
some sentences vocabulary is quite complex. The place where the writer
expresses the feeling of the man when he murdered the old man and the
fear of getting caught was quite difficult to understand.
 Pictures:
At the end pictures in this story were not needed because the
stories go well with just imagination. And that’s the interesting elements of
stories.

Conclusion
 At the end conclusion is that the story was quite interesting but
the ending should also be proper because it leaves us in suspense what happened
next in the story.