Response to literature By: Nicole Gliko

Response To Literature

“True! -Very nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and I am!” (Pg 625) Edgar Allen Poe wrote this quote in the spine tingling, most suspencful story, “Tell Tale Heart.” The narrator says that an old man’s eye is making him deathly mad. He spies and waits until the right time comes to end the man’s life. Will he get away with it? This short story will shock you with the answer. This story has an amazing exposition, high climax, and a twist ending. Tell Tale Heart is truly a maddening story.

One of the many things this author is well at is his exposition. He explains how being insane makes him better at life. He said things like, “You fancy me mad?” (Pg. 626) or, “this disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed them,” (pg. 625) He explains how the old man’s evil pale blue vulcher eye distresses him. They were far from enemies it was just the eye he despised. This exposition was definitely an amazing one.

Not only was his exposition fantastic, so was his climax! It tells how he plans to kill the old man, taking his dreadful eye with him. “The old man’s hour had come!” (Pg. 628), shrieks the narrator. He makes it sound like he is a cat, almost pouncing to attack. After killing the poor old man, he pulls up the floorboards and throws his disembodied limbs underneath and acts like nothing had ever happened. “He was dead as stone,” as the author, describes it (Pg 628). Too bad the neighbors heard the old man scream.

In this horrid sounding book, the twist ending makes it all the more interesting. The neighbors call the police and the author made it sound like the killer didn’t have a worry in the world. “I had nothing to fear,” he said in such a casual voice (Pg 629). He lets the police in, and actually takes them into the room he killed the old man. They all sit in the room and talk, but then it all goes wrong. The mad man would bet his life that he heard the dead mans heartbeat, getting louder and louder! He goes mad, “I foamed-I raved-I swore!” (Pg 630) It seems by every minute he gets crazier and more mad! After he could handle no more he yelled “Villains! Dissemble! No more! I admit the dead! - Tear open the planks-here, hear! It is the beating of his hideous heart!” (Pg 630) They finally take him away.

Tell Tale Heart is the most interest book I have ever read. Do you think Edgar Allen Poe is mad? Aren’t we all though? In a sense of Edgar’s perspective? This book really made the audience read to understand. The great exposition, high climax, and twist ending made this book Poe’s own. This suspenseful book I guarantee you will remember in the long run.