Edgar Allan Poe & his Tell Tale Heart

    Endowed with the ability to launch readers into their own suppressed, hellish nightmares, Edgar Allan Poe specialized in the art of gothic writing. He utilized the classic elements of Gothic literature in all of his writings, thus revealing his own possible fixations. The dark, unsettling location, death and decay, and the existence of evil and madness are the elements that suggest gothic characteristics in his narrative short story “The Tell Tale Heart.” These three elements are the essential instruments that signify the impact of Poe’s sinister, gothic vision in this short story and support his theory that true evil does not resided in one’s surroundings but deep within one’s self.

     The surroundings are of great significance in Gothic literature; it brings into play the atmosphere of dismay and horror and also reveals the corrosion of a perceived world. Typically, there are several settings within the story of first person narratives. In “The Tell Tale Heart” the location is essentially within the obsessive awareness of the narrator and relies on the events that transpire all through the nights leading up to the murder of the old man, and on the night of the murder itself. As the narrator tells the story of the past events, the tale is set in a house, presumably of the old man who the narrator lives with and cares for, and more so at night, midnight. Still describing the surroundings “as black as pitch with the thick darkness,” Poe averts from the neglected castles and haunted houses that are immortal within Gothic literature (Gwynn 44). He directs the readers towards their personal environment, bringing into play the customary household living, thus creating a more exclusive fear.

     One of the most recognized elements throughout Gothic literature is death and decay, which linger in nearly every piece of Edgar Allan Poe’s inscriptions thus forcing the readers to experience the realistic issue of immortality. In “The Tell Tale Heart,” decay is easily imagined due to the brief notation of the lighting of the lantern and the house being labeled as an “old house” (Gwynn 46). “And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh so cautiously–cautiously (for the hinges creaked)–I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye” (Gwynn 44). The man with the evil eye is referred to as an “old man”; this gives the image of a man whose body is aged and frail (Gwynn 43). The story being written in 1843, one hundred sixty-six years before this current moment, adds to the readers’ ability of creating a mental picture of an old, deteriorated house. Death persists as a darkness enduring throughout the entire story; the narrator can think of nothing other than killing the old man and so ridding himself of the horrid vulture eye. He, or she, smugly describes the measures taken for the concealment of the old man’s body as “wise precautions” (Gwynn 46). “First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs” (Gwynn 46). “There was nothing to wash out–no stain of any kind–no bloodspot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all–ha! ha!” (Gwynn 46) This testimony is short of the gruesome details of the ghastly act itself, yet ceases to need them. The solitary image that is projected to the readers is morbid enough to allow their own imaginations to explode into the fine points, perhaps even surfacing personal fears and nightmares.

    Poe implies that there is a “dark side” in every single human being and if this “dark” or “evil side” manifests the individual is more than likely to accomplish bad things, sin. There is a fragile sense of balance between light and dark, good and evil, sanity and insanity; the drive for one’s "dark side" to surface varies from being to being. In “The Tell Tale Heart”, it is the eye of the old man, to which the narrator references as the "Evil eye", that frightens the narrator terribly; therefore, assisting him in the judgment to sin, to slay the old man (Gwynn 44). “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture–a pale eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees–very gradually–I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Gwynn 43). It is this peculiar nervousness that indicates the beginning of the narrator’s unstable sanity and his descend down the road of self-devastation.

    It is often thought that evil and madness go hand in hand, largely because one is the effect of the other. The narrator enhances the horror and insanity by repeatedly insisting to the reader that he or she is not mad by describing how carefully he premeditated and implemented his brutal crime. “Harken! and observe how healthily–how calmly I can tell you the whole story” (Gwynn 43). “You should have seen how wisely I proceeded–with what caution–with what foresight–with what dissimulation I went to work!” (Gwynn 43,44) After the heinous murder was committed, the presence of the police proves to be the conclusion of the narrator’s unwavering sanity as he or she begins an internal struggle of self-delusion. The narrator describes how confidently he spoke with the police officers, until he begins to hear a sound that would not fade away, a sound that “was a low, dull, quick sound–much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton” (Gwynn 47). The narrator vows that the police could hear the sound as well but that they were mocking him, or her. “It grew louder–louder–louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!–no, no! They heard!–they suspected!–they knew!–they were making a mockery of my horror!” (Gwynn 47) Hearing this sound, the beating of the dead old man's heart, and the idea of mockery within the narrator’s own paranoid, subconscious mind, forces him, or her, to announce the guilty act of murder. “Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed!–tear up the planks!–here, here!–it is the beating of his hideous heart!” (Gwynn 47)

     In the narrative short story “The Tell Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe preserves the concept that true mercilessness does not reside in one’s surroundings but deep within one’s self. He extends the classic elements of Gothic literature while launching readers into their own suppressed, hellish nightmares and revealing his own possible fixations. The dark, unsettling location, death and decay, and the existence of madness prove to be essential instruments that signify the impact of Poe’s sinister, gothic vision within the short story.