How does Edgar Allan Poe create atmosphere in “The Tell Tale Heart” Essay

This es interpret is about how Edgar Allan Poe created tensity and atmosphere in his short boloney the tell tale warmheartedness. The discern Tale Heart was written in the year 1843 by Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe was born to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the intelligence of actress Elizabeth Arn ancient Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe. His later life was over-shadowed by financial and mental problems and periodic drunkenness, and he was temporarily disinherited by his foster father, but this could have influenced piece of musicy a(prenominal) of his short stories and poems, some of the short stories and poems he is most famous for are The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The G venerable Bug, The Black Cat, The Raven and Annabel Lee..On October 3, 1849, Poe was free-base on the streets of Balti more, delirious and in great distress, and in need of immediate assistance, according to the man who found him. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died un sequencely on the morning of October 7. This was most distressing for people who were a fan of his work, but they knew that his work would still be read over a desire time past his death. There was never a certain cause for his death but some of the suggestions to why he died were alcohol, drugs, and other agents.Poes Tell Tale Heart is of the gothic and horror fiction genre this means it is a story that is wrote to induce a pleasing terror on the reader. Gothic is a genre that many people enjoy to read, because people like the suspense and shock that is involved in a gothic story, it gives the reader a sense of insecurity, making sure that they calculate about what could happen. Its stories like this that class as a gothic genre. The Tell Tale Heart is most unquestionably of this genre because the suspense in the story is immense and there is much emphasis, in this essay I will try my very best to drag how Edgar Allan Poe does this.Tension plays a pivotal role in the short story, so Poe use all the techniques available to create this tension. These techniques are stylistic. He uses things like characterisation, setting and plot. In the following paragraphs I will explain all of these techniques.Poes Tell Tale Heart is set at night time in a house that heavy(p)s like an aged gothic manor. At night the house is sealed off from light. This creates a dark, eerie feel to the story. Night time sybolises danger and evil it sybolises this because vicious things like dangerous animals (e.g. wolves) strike at night and kill their prey, too mythical creatures such as vampires are more active at night, this creates a scary atmosphere to night time. A descriptions in The Tell Tale Heart that show its night time isHis move was as black as pitch with the thick darkness. This shows how dark it really was. Its in addition as if the fibber bottom feel the dark, and has to push through and through it. This description of the dark paints a picture in your mind and it gives the effect of being in a silent room with no light and no escape. The effect of no escape is important because its as if the old man can non escape.The main thing that triggers the fibbers murderous tendency is the old mans shopping center. The old mans heart is described as the Vulture Eye. We do not go through the relationship of the fibber to the old man this adds tension because we do not see how the vote counter chicanes this man and why he would want to kill him. There are some ideas of what the relationship is my view on the relationship is that the teller is a person who cares for the old man, due to vile vision. I get this impression because it sayswith a film over it.Its difficult to see through a film, so this denotes an impression of poor vision. He may have gone not expecting this caribe eye to begin haunting him. This eye is basically send the narrator delirious. The nar rators obsession with the old mans eye culminates in his own undoing as he is engulfed with internal impinge and his own transformation from confidence to guilt.The fixation on the old mans vulture-like eye forces the narrator to concoct a plan to eliminate the old man. The narrator confesses the sole discernment for killing the old man is his eyeWhenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold and so by degrees very gradually I made up my mind to rid myself of the eye for ever. The narrator begins his tale of betrayal by stressful to convince us (the reader) he is not insane, but we quickly surmise the narrator indeed is out of control. The fact that the old mans eye is the only motivation to murder proves the narrator is so mentally unstable that he must search for justification to kill. In his mind, he rationalises murder with his own unreasonable fear of the eye.Another reason this adds tension is because the narrator wrestles with competitivenessing feelings of responsibility t o the old man and feelings of ridding his life of the mans Evil Eye. Although afflicted with overriding fear and derangement, the narrator still acts with quasi-allegiance toward the old man however, his kindness may stem more from protecting himself from suspicion of watching the old man every night than from authenticated compassion for the old man. The narrator shows his contrariety when he confesses he loves the old man, but he is still too overwhelmed by the pale blue eye to restrain himself from the all-consuming desire to eliminate the eye. His struggle is evident as he waits to kill the old man in his sleep so that he wont have to face the old man when he kills him but on the other hand, the narrator cant justify the killing unless the vulture eye was open. The narrator is finally able to kill the man becauseI saw it with perfect distinctness all a dull blue, with a horrific veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones but I could see nothing else of the old mans face or person for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot. This creates tension because all of the conflicting emotions confound us think will he do it. It really keeps us in suspense and we are desperate to find out what he does. The story hooks us in and makes us read the whole thing. We know that the man is insane but we do not know if he regains his mental stability until he actually kills the man nearing the end of the story. But still then we cannot be certain he is insane until the very end, I will explain this march on in the next paragraph.It is said that a neighbour had heard a shriek and that suspicion of foul play had been aroused. The narrator is very cocksure and does not seem to be pissed by the murder he had just acted out. The narrators language show his confidence and audacity, nevertheless pride, in his kill Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings o f triumph. The narrators authorisation in his dark deed continued even when the police came to check on the old man and investigate the loud noises neighbours heard the night I smiled,-for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. He is very polite and confident.He is also very persuading, its almost as if he is sound of mind. He manages to persuade the men that the old man is somewhere else in the country. He invited them around and even showed them his treasures to show that nothing had been disturbed. He even had the audacity to get some chairs and tell the men to rest in the old mans chamber whilst the whole time the old man was dismembered beneath the down boards. However, the narrators mind is quickly consumed with guilt, which creates his delusion of hearing the old mans heartbeat taunting him from under the flooring.His paranoia makes the heart beat louder louder louder and in his state of delirium he confesses to killing the old man in hopes of ridding his life of the menacing heartbeat I felt that I must shriek or die. His guilt reached his imagination which then went on to make him hear things that wasnt real, his conscience was putting an image into his head that this old man who he had no quarrel with was going to haunt him because he killed the man for no justifiable reason. He ends up driving himself even more insane and confesses. The story ends with his shrieking I admit the deed tear up the planks hear, hear it is the beating of the hideous heartThe most dramatic way of which tension is created is through plot and character. As shown already the plot is very sinister. But the characterisation is very trade good. The plot evolves around the killing of someone who is obviously vulnerable. With the poor vision, old age and treasures he is obviously a very vulnerable man, he has no safety apart from the narrator who is going to kill him, so he has no safety. This adds tension to the story because we want to know if the narrator w ill show this compassion he has for the old man, or murder him regardless. We know the narrator loves the old man because he saysI loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult.The narrator loved the old man, the narrator even admitted it, but he still had plans to kill him. The fact that the narrator chuckled at the fact that the old man was oblivious to his plans also showed the old mans vulnerability. The narrator also said that he did not have any problem with the old man, who he saw himself as vulnerable. But it was the eye that vexed himit was not the old man who vexed me but his evil eye.It is the characterisation that leads to the biggest tension in the story. This is because the story is a confession, told in a graduation exercise person narrative. The reader feels what the narrator feels. The punctuation and tone that Poe used in the story shows us that the narrator is hysterical and mad. But the schizophrenic tendency he shows at the end confir ms his insanity. This adds a lot of tension because we see how evil he can be but how calm and friendly he can be a short time later. It makes us wonder what he will do next, his actions are very unpredictable, which also tells us he is insane. With this conflict within himself it really makes us wonder, this also makes the story exciting.In this section I will focus on the stylistic devices used by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe creates tension with the use of short, choppy sentences with active verbs signal tension. In a way mirroring the narrators racing heart. Long, meandering sentences filled with adjectives and adverbs imply a relaxed pace, so Poe rarely used long sentences in The Tell Tale Heart. Short sentences are vital whist writing a story with tension. An example of short sentences in The Tell Tale HeartThere was no pulsation. He was stone dead.This shows an urgency to make sure he was dead He could not fortune the old man to be alive It adds tension because we do not know what h e will do. Will he stab him more to make sure he is dead or will he just finish the deed and hide the body It leave us open to guessing.Poe also adds tension through the use of his punctuation. Poe heavily relies on the exclamation mark to show the narrators growing discomfort. The use of this exclamation mark shows us the tone that the narrator must be using. For exampleBut the beating grew louder I thought the heart must have burst. And now a new anxiety seized me the sound would be heard by a neighbour The old mans hour had come This shows how panicked he was becoming. You could practically hear the panic. As of he is facial expression it in a high voice. It has a sense of upset to it, the panic was upsetting him and he was worried that other people could hear it. It is clear that the narrator is becoming hysterical. As he does so, tension is added because his actions become even more unpredictable, will he panic and leave or will he open fire it and kill the man anyway.Edgar Allan Poe uses a lot of repetition in this piece Louder louder louder. He does this a lot in this story it adds tension, because it can add a variety of things. It can mean sinister planningI proceeded with what caution with what foresight with what dissimulationThere is a sinister planning I this, how should he proceed with his plan, with what caution, with what foresight etc.Repetition can also show panic Louder louder louder he is beginning to panic about the beating of the hideous heart He can hear it and he is worried that the police can also hear it so he begins to panic, this leads to his confession.In the last paragraph it was belike noticed that I used dashes (-) in the repetition. This is because Edgar Allan Poe used them at two very important scenes. The first time he consistently used them was when he was stalking the old manI proceeded with what caution with what foresight with what dissimulation He is stalking the old man and is planning how to kill him, he is trying to figure out how he should follow the old man as he is doing it, the dashes indicate a pause as he plans his next step. The secant time he uses them is just before he confesses the murder, and can hear the heart beating Louder louder louder. The man is obviously panicked. This adds tension because we dont know what he will do because he is so unpredictable. It adds a lot of tension, because we want to know what happens and we are waiting to fid out.Finally I will fill up with if I think the story was effective or not. I have described in the essay numerous techniques to why it is effective. I must say that I agree with all of them. I think the plot is engrossing and it really hooks you and you want to know what happens. The characterisation is excellent and the mystery of the hinge upon of the narrator (who I have referred to as a he) adds tension because its hard to think of a woman committing such an act, but it is possible because the narrator confessed to loving the old man. The old mans eye, it is possible to picture it and I find it shuddery to think about, but I find it even more chilling to think that someone would kill over it.The setting is marvellous, an old house, sealed off from all light, its chilling and scary making me feel lucky to live where I do, in the light. I also think that all the punctuation that Edgar Allen Poe used was used at an appropriate time and was an asset to the piece as a whole. The punctuation shows how clever the killer is and how cunning and sinister he is. But it also shows how panicked he can get. The start of the piece was also very good, because it began in the end, when he is where I can only assume, a mental institution. Where he is telling his story. In all it is a very good and very effective piece of writing.