Tell Tale Heart Mood

Words: 449
Pages: 2

In his short story "Tell-Tale Heart," Edgar Allan Poe used the literary device of setting to create a dark, threatening tone. He used time of day, man-made geography, and elapsed time. He also used mood. These elements of setting created a dark, threatening tone in "Tell-Tale Heart." Edgar Allan Poe used time of day in his story. He explained that it was the "dead hour of night" which is the darkest time of night. Being in such a dark place, the old man wouldn't have been able to see the approaching danger. This element of setting added to the threatening tone in his story. Being nightime, everyone in the neighborhood was asleep. This created an eerie silence which added to the tone of the story. Being in such a dark and quiet room is considered scary by most because a person is unable to see and will not see any approaching threats. Edgar Allan Poe also uses man-made geograohy in his short story. The murderer and the old man live in a neighborhood and the story takes place in their own house. He explains how the murderer crept in to the old man's bedroom to kill him. This adds to the dark, threatening tone because a person's own bedroom is usually considered to be one of the most safe places to …show more content…
He explains how the murderer stalked the old man in his bedroom for seven long nights. The murderer would stick his head in the room slowly and open a small crack in the lamp to see the old man's eye. For those seven nights, the murderer didn't see the old man's eye. One would have thought that he would have given up but he was patient and kept trying. The old man was stalked for seven nights without knowing it and that adds to the story's tone. He also uses mood in his short story. He uses lighting to create an eerie tone. Being in the pitch black bedroom is already creepy enough, but the fact that the only light in the bedroom comes from the tiny crack in the murderer's lamp adds to the threatening