Btrr The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 3,4

The Tell-Tale Heart 

Edgar Allan Poe

• The following lessons will help you understand "The Tell-Tale Heart" by  Edgar Allan Poe from several perspectives.
  
  
• The lessons will entail reading and analyzing a story together. You will do research along the way.

• Finally, you will have to compare this story to others taught in class.

The story The tell-tale heart

https://youtu.be/Z_utA6j3Oc8

Gothic Fiction

 Gothic Fiction, according to Shmoop.com, is one of the easiest genres to spot. And it's also one of the most fun to explore, as long as you don't mind taking a walk on the nastier side of life. Snapped minds, crypt-like spaces, actual crypts, death and dismemberment, fear, the extremes of human behavior, a juxtaposition of the "sacred" and the "profane" – these are some of the sure signs you're in a Gothic story, or at least a Gothic moment.

(https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tell-tale-heart/analysis/genre)

What elements in the story make The Tell-Tale Heart gothic fiction?

insanity

dismemberment

death

fear

extreme human behaviour

Highlights from the19th-century were Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Other literary wonders are 'Wuthering heights' (1847) by Emily Brontë and her sister Charlotte's 'Jane Eyre' (1847). A later, well-known (Victorian) novel in this genre is Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' from 1897.
Carmilla, by Sheridan Le Fanu was inspired by the same themes with vampires (female), mystery and Romance.

Explain the title:
The Tell-Tale Heart

It's the heart that finally gives the murderer away

Assignment:

Look up information about The Tell-Tale Heart.

Things like: theme, symbolism and narrator point of view.

Also look up information about narrator point of view in general. Write down your findings and bring to class.

 

What have you found about the theme(s) of the story?

Examples:

Madness and sanity: the narrator’s attempt to prove his sanity as he explains his meticulous plans for killing the old man only prove his madness.

The pressure of guilt: though he claims to be innocent and justified in his actions, the narrator’s guilt manifests in the sound of the dead man’s beating heart.

The passage of time: the recurring references to time emphasize the narrator’s obsession with time and its effect on his psyche.

What can you say about the symbolism in the story?

The two main symbols in the story are the "tell-tale heart," which is the heart of the dead and dismembered man that beats so loudly that the guilty murderer can hear it, and the old man's "vulture eye." The heart beating beneath the floor boards represents the narrator's guilt. 

What different narrator's points of view have you found?

First person

Second person

Third person:

- omniscient

- multiple

- limited

- objective

Who is the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart?

The murderer

What's the irony when it comes to the narrator?

ironic: his own speech betrays himself ( for policemen.

the policemen are villains in his view, but he is actually the villain!

He thinks the policemen make fun of him.

He thinks he is not mad, but the more he explains and to convinces the reader, the reader think he is mad.

Give some examples of why he thinks he is so clever

His description of how he goes into the old man's bedroom every night. Taking an hour to get his head through the door.

The ease with which he convinces the policemen that nothing's the matter.

Do you have any questions left? What are they?