The Tell-Tale Heart

1. The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

2. The Tell-Tale Heart • Pre-Reading: • Brainstorm at least five things that you look for or expect to find in a scary story. • What did you write down and why? • Do you believe that these things add to the atmosphere of a scary story? • Are you scared by any of these things?

3. The Tell-Tale Heart

4. The Tell-Tale Heart • Vocabulary Worksheet Foresight: Thoughtful regard for the future Dissimulation: Hidden under a false appearance Vexed: Troubled, distressed, caused agitation Sagacity: Sound judgment Hearkening: Giving careful attention Awe: A mixed feeling of reverence, fear, and wonder Distinctness: Unmistakable, clearly defined Over-acuteness: Very keen Concealment: A means of hiding Waned: To grow gradually less Scantlings: Small quantities or amounts Suavity: Gracefulness, politeness Bade: Urged, compelled Audacity: Bold courage, daring Reposed: To lay at rest Derision: Contempt, ridicule

5. The Tell-Tale Heart PREDICTION QUESTIONS Title: Based on the title, predict what you think this story will be about. First paragraph: Who do you think the narrator is speaking to? Third paragraph: Write down what you think the author means by “the work.” Third paragraph: Why does the narrator treat the old man so well in the mornings? Fourth paragraph: Why doesn’t the narrator leave when he realizes the old man is awake? Fifth paragraph: Would you like to change your original prediction of what this story is about?

6. The Tell-Tale Heart PREDICTION QUESTIONS Sixth and seventh paragraphs: Whose heart do you think the narrator is hearing? Seventh paragraph: In one sentence, predict the ending of the story. Midway through eighth paragraph: Who is at the door? Ninth paragraph: What is the noise? Tenth paragraph: What is the narrator feeling right now? End of story: Were any of your original predictions about the story correct?

7. The Tell-Tale Heart • The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

8. The Tell-Tale Heart • 'The Tell-Tale Heart' is a short story of madness and murder, and is one of Poe's best-known works. This appalling first-person confession remains as tense and shocking as it was when first published in 1843. • The story of domestic violence is told from the perspective of a nameless narrator. The protagonist's personal account appears grounded in an irrational fear, the horror of which is intensified by the narrator consistently reminding the reader that he is NOT insane. • There is an admission that the victim presented no threat to the narrator: 'Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.'

9. The Tell-Tale Heart • Poe was a pioneer of the short story. He defined the genre as a narrative that could be read at a single sitting of between half and hour and two hours. Its essential purpose was to create 'a certain unique and single effect' with everything in the narrative unified to serve this aim. A typical plot would have one or two short pieces of action introduced and brought to a climax, often by a twist at the end. The story is usually set in only one place. Characters are few in number, with the primary focus on one. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' is a perfect model of the genre. • ACTIVITY:With a partner, map out the plot of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” using the following plot map.

10. The Tell-Tale Heart

11. The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

12. the The Tell-Tale Heart • Plot Analysis Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice. • Initial Situation: Not insane! and the "Evil Eye" • The narrator wants to show that he is not insane, and offers a story as proof. In that story, the initial situation is the narrator's decision to kill the old man so that the man's eye will stop looking at the narrator. • Conflict: Open your eye! • The narrator goes to the old man's room every night for a week, ready to do the dirty deed. But, the sleeping man won't open his eye. Since the eye, not the man, is the problem, the narrator can't kill him if the offending eye isn't open.

13. Suspense Uh-oh, the police. The narrator is pretty calm and collected when the police first show up. He gives them the guided tour of the house, and then invites them to hang out with him in the man's bedroom. But, the narrator starts to hear a terrible noise, which gets louder and louder, and… The Tell-Tale Heart • Complication: The narrator makes a noise while spying on the old man, and the man wakes up – and opens his eye. • This isn't much of a complication. The man has to wake up in order for the narrator to kill him. If the man still wouldn't wake up after months and months of the narrator trying to kill him, now that would be a conflict. • Climax: Murder… • The narrator kills the old man with his own bed and then cuts up the body and hides it under the bedroom floor. • Suspense: Uh-oh, the police. • The narrator is pretty calm and collected when the police first show up. He gives them the guided tour of the house, and then invites them to hang out with him in the man's bedroom. But, the narrator starts to hear a terrible noise, which gets louder and louder, and…

14. The Tell-Tale Heart • Denouement: Make it stop, please! • Well, the noise gets even louder, and keeps on getting louder until the narrator can't take it anymore. Thinking it might make the noise stop, the narrator tells the cops to look under the floorboards. • Conclusion: The narrator identifies the source of the sound. • Up to this moment, the narrator doesn't identify the sound. It's described first as "a ringing," and then as "a low, dull, quick sound – much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton" (9). Only in the very last line does the narrator conclude that the sound was "the beating of [the man's] hideous heart!" (10)

15. The Tell-Tale Heart • Discussion Questions: • What components of a scary story were present in this story? • How reliable is our narrator regarding his sanity? • How does Poe use images and phrases to create an atmosphere of horror? • Why does the killer confess? Does the heartbeat really tell the tale of the murder?

16. The Tell-Tale Heart • Why do you think this story has remained so popular over all these years?

17. The Tell-Tale Heart • Choose one of the following options for your response to The Tell-Tale Heart. • Option 1: Use the COMIC CREATOR at http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/ to create a comic strip with at least six blocks that summarizes a portion of the story The Tell-Tale Heart. • Option 2: Use the ACROSTIC POEMS online tool at http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/acrostic/ to create an acrostic poem that summarizes the events of the story. You can use the term “Tell-Tale Heart” or “Narrator” as the basis for your poem. • Remember to go online at http://www.poemuseum.org/selected_works/tell_tale_heart.html to review the story if you need to. You will be asked to share your written response to the story with the class tomorrow.