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The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart

Short storyCrimeLiterary Fiction
Pages
68
Published
1843
Language
English

Synopsis

A narrator, insisting all the while on his perfect sanity, calmly explains how and why he murdered an old man he lived with. He had nothing against the old man — indeed he loved him — except for one of his eyes: a pale, filmed 'vulture eye' that filled the narrator with dread. Night after night he creeps to the old man's door, until the moment comes to act.

Having committed the deed and concealed the body with meticulous care, the narrator receives the police with perfect composure — until a sound only he can hear begins to build beneath the floorboards, driving him toward a frantic confession.

One of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous and widely taught stories, 'The Tell-Tale Heart' (1843) is a compact masterpiece of psychological horror. Told by a compulsively unreliable narrator, it turns guilt, obsession, and madness into unbearable suspense in only a few pages.

Prose complexity
4/10

Vibe

DarkCreepyTenseAtmospheric
Unreliable NarratorVillain Protagonist

Genres

Crime Literary Fiction Poetry Thriller Horror Classics Psychological Horror Drama Gothic Mystery Short Stories

About the author

E
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in...

Characters

Narrator (Tell-Tale Heart)Supporting
Old Man (Tell-Tale Heart)Supporting
The neighbour (The Tell-Tale Heart)Supporting
Three police officersSupporting
The perpetrator (The Tell-Tale Heart)Supporting
All characters in The Tell-Tale Heart

Frequently asked questions

  • Is The Tell-Tale Heart a standalone story?

    This work is a standalone short story and does not require reading any other works by Poe to understand or appreciate it.

  • Is The Tell-Tale Heart part of a collection?

    While often published individually, "The Tell-Tale Heart" frequently appears in anthologies of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and poetry.

  • Does The Tell-Tale Heart have an unreliable narrator?

    The story is famously narrated by a character whose insistence on their own sanity, despite the events they describe, makes them a classic example of an unreliable narrator.

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