The Tell Tale Heart Suspense Essay

Words: 554
Pages: 3

“The Tale Tell Heart” is written in the first person point of view. The main character, who is also the narrator, kills a man and takes you through his actions and feelings. Edgar Allen Poe uses point of view to heighten suspense in “The Tell Tale Heart” by not allowing you to know what the other characters, such as the officers, are thinking about the situation. This leaves you with a sense that you are missing an important part of the story, and leaves you with the nagging thought of what will happen next.

First, we are shown an example on the second page where the text states “The old man’s hour has come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him.” This is an example of suspense because for a moment you have no idea what is happening. When the author says “The old man’s hour has come!” you get this feeling of what will
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The author writes “ I had swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder!” The text from this quote associates with other scenes in the story by continuing to tell you how the narrator can hear the heartbeat of the old man he had just killed. If this story was made from an outside perspective, we not even know about this torture, or how it made the killer go crazy. The narrator describes the beating as getting louder, which ultimately leads to him confessing without conviction to the murder. Knowing about this sound keeps you on edge about what he will next. It leads up to a big burst, like a volcano exploding, of him spilling everything. It surprises you because the narrator seems so cool and collected with his thoughts, but then everything takes a huge