Tell-Tale Heart
Narrator:
Sharpening of senses (hearing)
1st person—limited, unreliable
-insane—kill man just because he doesn’t like the way his eye looked
Pg. 715: why will you say that I am mad? –responding to being called mad and defending himself
-aware of disease
-insists he can rationally tell the story
Symbolism
The eye: has a film reference to vulture—feeding upon dead things, therefore eye is related to death; sees that he is dead meat, therefore narrator thinks he’s going to die spends weeks planning murder; the eye must be open in his sleep in order to go through with it so he shines a light on it each night to check that’s it open murders and dismembers old man; significance in whole story: never wanted to kill the man because he loves him, just wants the eye to be gone
Clock: time is beating like a drum
Fear of Death
The Fall of the House of Usher
-Fall symbolizes: end of blood line, sickness, physical end of house
-spiritual connection between the family and the house
Pg. 708-709: I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher’s which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, (for other men have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a