THE TELL-TALE HEART by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
1. Write a summary of the story (between 100-120 words): ………………….
2. What type of narrator is used in the story? It is a first person narrator, so it can't be
omniscient, it is limited. The narrator is one of the characters, so he's telling what he
thinks, sees, and feels. He could be trying to be omniscient when he interprets what the
old man is thinking, but he doesn't really know. It is an intrusive narrator, because he's
talking directly to the reader, he wants to interact with us. For example, in the first
paragraph, when he says: Hearken!
3. What do I know about the events, characters, etc? We know what the narrator (the
mad man) is telling. We know that there's a murder, that he tries to hide it to the policemen,
we know a little bit about the old man (the description the mad man gives), etc. We can
work out that the narrator is paranoid, that he's not healthy, so we deduce that we can't
trust him a lot.
We know that this "mad man" is a nervous person, cold-blooded, crazy, and
that he is ill. His senses are become different, deteriorated and out of control.
We see the old man from his perspective, but he looks cautious, calm, and
good with him. They may be flatmates.
The policemen seem relaxed, and not pretty serious, because instead of
investigating and go, the sit and keep chatting with the mad man.
4. What do the characters know? I think the old man doesn’t know what is
going to happen, but he could have been expecting something, because even
though they don’t have a bad relationship, he could have felt that the mad
man was observing him, and that he was kinder with him the week before. But
anyway, I don’t think the old man sees his flatmate as a possible murderer.
The mad man knows everything that is happening, because he’s the one who
is planning the murder, and he’s observing the old man at every moment, so
he misses almost anything. But he’s mad, his senses are sharpened, so he sees
the actual facts in a different way.
The police-officers know nothing about the murder, although they think the
mad man could be suspicious, but they don’t have any evidence to check
something, so they don’t realize until the mad man admits what he did, finally.
5. What are the effects of these differences in knowledge? Comparing
with the old man and the officers, we are aware of what is going to happen,
because we know that the mad man is anxious about the old man, and we
could expect the worst about this situation. We also know that the mad man is
going crazy (because of the pressure he feels, the mixed feelings, etc) because
we can deduce that what he hears sometimes is unlikely to be real. We
visualize that he’s getting mad. So we can have a relatively omniscient idea of
the facts in the story.
6. How reliable is the narrator? Why? Find some evidence in the text to
prove this. The narrator is not reliable. In the first paragraph we can find
some evidence that he’s truly unhealthy. And he’s always obsessed with the
Evil Eye, which is a weird idea.
