The Tell-Tale Heart Symbolism

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What could drive someone far enough from sanity to make them kill another innocent human being? In “The Tell-Tale Heart” Edgar Allan Poe’s narrator is driven to the dark corners of derangement, and kills another man. Edgar uses symbolism, descriptive language, and the first person perspective to help the readers begin to comprehend one’s reason to commit murder. The author uses symbolism to explain why the narrator executed the explementary old man. The narrator hated the man’s eye, because “...one of his eyes resembled that of a vulture- a pale blue eye with film over it”.(Page 46, paragraph 2) This clearly reveals that the narrator dislikes the eye. He compares the eye to “that of a vulture”, he does this because a vulture is a considerably creepy animal, and the narrator considers the old man to be extremely creepy. This is important because the narrator kills the man because of his creepy eye. He kills him because he is different. It becomes more and more clear throughout the story that than antagonist has nothing against the protagonist, except for his one eye. Now how could one kill another over a physical aspect? “I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not thee man that vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” (Page 47, paragraph 1) The narrator can only kill the …show more content…
Edgar uses the old man’s eye throughout the story as a symbol for the narrator’s reason for crime. He also uses descriptive language and the first person perspective for the same reasons. With the descriptive language we get a further in depth view of what the narrator is experiencing. The first person perspective allows the reader to put themselves in his shoes and recieve a closer understanding of what he was thinking. By the end of the story, readers begin to wonder if it was the old man or the narrator who was
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