Tell Tale Heart Symbolism

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Fear, one of life’s most memorable and impacting moments. Mainly used as a survival instinct to protect people from harm. It guides us for what to do in scary situations and, holds us back from doing spin-chilling and dangerous actions. As an example, imagine you are in a dark and terrifying alley late at night, and you suddenly see a shadow move from the corner of your eye, your body instantly gets a hair-raising feeling. As a result, your fear triggers an instinct that makes you want to run causing fear to be helpful. Not only, does fear give us a survival instinct but, also gives us a sense of rationality. For instant, fear is the reason we don’t naturally jump off a cliff or swim with sharks for fun; It keeps us safe and away from harm. …show more content…
In “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “Masque of Red Death” symbolism of the characters fear, that turns into their obsessions. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” it uses symbolism in the eye of the old man. The eye of the old man represented his judgement towards the narrator. “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture-- a pale blue eye, with film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold…” (74) explains the narrator. Judgement, is what the narrator is describing what he sees when he views the old man eye. The old man, was not considered as a person to the narrator but a creepy looking, judgemental, and evil looking old man. Whenever the eye lay upon him, he got chills that spread throughout his body. The narrator visions this towards the old man because he felt that no matter what he did, the old man still had a reason to judge him. Thus, the author's interpretation of how the readers can tell how the narrator became so obsessed over the old man’s eye that he became afraid of it, leading to the death of the old man. In addition,“The Masque of Red Death” also involves symbolism in the uninvited, masqued figure of the story. The red masked figure represents death, and in it’s nerve-racking and creepy figure. Prince Prospero states, “...Red Death… He had come like a thief in the night”(61). This quote is talking abou the Red Death, and how he had killed everyone in the story so secretly and quietly. He had …show more content…
In“The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of Red Death” both stories involve the same ironic scenes in them. Both stories try to keep death out of there home but, didn’t realize that death was already in there houses the whole time. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the old man puts cages around all the windows of his house to block out the sickness, pain, suffering, and death. The narrator explains, “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily” (75). The old man was so frightened of the outside world and death that he had to put cages on the windows to keep the negative qualities out. What was most shocking to find out, was that death had already found its way into the house in the form of the narrator. The narrator was the grim reaper in the house; spying, and slowly watching him as he waits to take his move. Poe, was showing the readers how no matter how hard you try to fight and escape death, death is inevitable it always finds a way to find you. In “The Masque of Red Death,” Prince Prospero tries to keep the death and suffering of his people on the outside of his castle but, didn’t realize till later on that death was already in the castle. Prince Prospero comments, “When the eyes of
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