The Tell-Tale Heart Manipulation

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Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” provides a world in which much is presented as clear and much is left hidden. It soon becomes apparent that the line between the two is not as distinct as one might initially believe, and ultimately this line fades into nonexistence. Unable to be sure what is true and what is false, the reader must realize that there are no objective truths within the story for them to follow. Using the connotations the story prescribes to the senses, Poe pushes the reader toward the conclusion that even the truth behind one’s own perceptions of the world are secret even from them. The story surrounds itself with secrets, but it initially leads the reader to believe that the story reveals more secrets than it keeps hidden. One way in which the story accomplishes this perspective is by having the narrator clearly and openly present his or her motives to commit murder. Traditionally within a murder, the killer’s reasoning would be inaccessible information on which one would only…show more content…
It is a distinct choice to tell the story from the narrator’s first-person point of view, as it phrases the story from a matter-of-fact perspective. The narrator’s self-declared passion to prove that he or she is not insane creates a self-imposed narrative where everything the narrator says comes across authentic and truthful. The reader trusts the narrator to be telling the truth and not withholding secrets, as the narrator him/herself is describing his or her innermost thoughts. The glee and the fear and the wrath must be the narrator’s honest emotions. The narrator’s intense hatred for the old man’s eye must be the true motivation behind the narrator’s actions, and the narrator’s description of the events themselves must be true. After all, what truth could possibly be more preserved than the truth of experience coming from the person who experienced

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