Analysis of the Short Story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe


Keywords:
Edgar Allan Poe, Paranoia, Crime, DiscourseAbstract
“The Tell – Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story written in the genre of horror. It describes the committing of murder and then confessing it due to being tormented by guilty conscious. The paper aims to analyze the story thoroughly including its themes and literary and rhetorical devices. The methodology used for the paper is discourse analysis which essentially reveals socio- psychological characteristics of the protagonist who is an unnamed person, telling a tale about a crime he committed to prove that he is not insane. The paper discusses in detail various aspects of the story which are directly or indirectly connected to the motives and psychological impulsions behind committing the crime by the protagonist. The paper concludes that the story has been written to provide a study of paranoia1 and mental deterioration.
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