Oh Poe

I have a compilation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and poems. I got it out to reread “Annabel Lee” when I think it was Kelsey who said she was doing her explication on that poem. And then I decided to read The Tell-Tale Heart. Even though it’s one of the most famous of Poe’s stories, I had never read it, though of course I knew the gist of the story. I know it’s supposed to be creepy, but I found the man’s attempts to prove his sanity funny, just because every thing that he brought to attention to prove he wasn’t mad just proved how mad he really was. First of all, that he was willing to kill this old man because his eye crept him out, and he thought that was reasonable and acceptable, is not how a mentally stable person thinks. How he describes the clever way he snuck his head into the room only sounds ridiculous, his laughter does not help his case, the precautions he took when hiding the body add to his insanity, and of course hearing the old man’s heart. But not only hearing it once the old man is dead, but hearing it when he was alive, and thinking that every one else could surly hear it as well, proves how paranoid and insane he had become. Though Poe is known for horror, he has these comedic elements that make you laugh, but then disturb you because of how insane this person is. Being Poe, this is of course a creepy story, not only in plot but also in delivery. Just like the madman, the story starts off slowly and steadily, and then gradually gets faster as the man gets madder, until there’s a rush of thoughts and sounds and emotions in the last paragraph as the man goes completely off the edge of sanity with his paranoia. Though the beating of the heart isn’t actually written with words, like “bum-bum-bum”, just the description of its noise level,” it grew louder – louder – louder!” as the man’s thoughts race makes the reader hear the beating heart. It’s the man’s thoughts, and it’s he that is thinking it’s getting louder, so to tell it like that, instead of the actual sound the heart makes, puts you inside the mind of the madman even more, until you start to feel paranoid and hear the sound as well. That is the genius of Poe, using the first person to put you into the mindset of a madman who thinks he is a genius, but is sadly just disturbed. At first, the madman is talking to the reader, so you get to judge him, because that’s basically what he’s saying and asking you to do. But once he has killed the old man and starts hearing the beating heart again, he stops talking to the narrator, stops trying to impress, and becomes truly worried and crazed by the noise. It is then that you start to see inside of him, into what he is thinking and how his mind works. He does not think he is mad at all, and unfortunately it is that fact and his own paranoia that lead to his downfall. He doesn’t consider that the noise is all in his head, he immediately assumes it is real and that everyone else can hear it and therefore knows what he did. The madman was so confident in his plan, yet he almost immediately accepts that the police know of his plan, despite its ingenuity and cleverness, which shows his deep paranoia and insecurity which led him to kill the old man in the first place – because his eye made him feel uncomfortable.