The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe: Short Story

           

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

            The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe which tells about a mad man who kills an old man who did nothing wrong to him. The old man always being nice to him but he decides to kill the old man because of his eyes as a mere reason as he says that the eyes are evil and he cannot stand looking at them. Throughout the story, he tries to prove his sanity by emphasizing that a mad man would not be able to do things that he did as he has perfectly planned the murder from entering the old man room until hiding the dead body under the floor. Despite that, at the end, he confessed his deed because of his strong sense of hearing. He keeps hearing the heartbeat of the old man even after he kills him and the sound gets louder until he cannot stand it anymore. Thus, he confesses everything to the police officers.

            By looking at the short story, we can relate it to one of the literary criticisms’ theory which is modernism. This literature can be said as a modernist literature. This is due to the reason that it follows the trend of the modernist literature. Firstly, it uses stream-of-consciousness technique of writing in which the story portrays the character’s thoughts and feelings regarding the events which happen throughout the story without any dialogue included. The mad man expresses his thoughts on everything even including his thought about himself as he thinks that he is not crazy. He also expresses his feelings when he is in the process of murdering the old man. Secondly, the narrator which is the mad man is an unreliable narrator due to his unstable state of mind. He cannot rationalize things as he kills the old man without strong reason. He also claims to have a strong sense of hearing as he is said to hear the heartbeat of the old man even after he has being murdered. Thus, things uttered by the narrator cannot be trusted as it is possible that it is not true. In conclusion, it can be said that this short story by Edgar Allan Poe can be criticized by using the theory of modernism.