What simile does Poe use to help us see the ray of light from the lantern?

Poe’s short stories are widely known for the mystery and horror they hide. Being famous as an inventor of the detective genre, the writer filled his narrations with seemingly minute details that turned out to have had substantial importance in the end. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of the most famous stories in Poe’s legacy, the symbolism of which, manifested through the eye, the beating heart, and the lantern, allows analyzing the central ideas of the plot.

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Even though the word “heart” is present in the story’s title, the eye is the most vividly emphasized symbol throughout the poem. Eyes are frequently considered as the reflection of a person’s personality and honesty of nature. In the story, however, one of the eyes of the narrator’s neighbor is described in a rather sinister and unpleasant way. In fact, the narrator calls it “the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (Poe). The eye has taken away the madman’s attention from anything else in the old neighbor. He admits that he “could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person” (Poe). By the end of the story, the reader realizes that the hideousness of the character the narrator sees in the eye belongs not to the old man but to himself. Being unable to endure it any longer, the narrator kills the owner of the eye in the hope of gaining peace with himself.

The beating heart is another important symbol of the story, representing the continuous uneasiness of the narrator, which he cannot get rid of even after murdering the old man. Throughout the story, the narrator often refers to himself as a wild and uncontrolled creature. He admits that the old man’s heart increased his “fury” and encouraged him to take action just like “the beating of a drum” affects a soldier (Poe). The heart also personifies the narrator’s lack of sympathy and emotions. Whereas the beating of the heart is what makes a person keep living, the madman refers to the neighbor’s one as “the hellish tattoo of the heart” (Poe). Finally, the heartbeat serves as the symbol of guilt since the illusion of its sound makes the narrator disclose his secret.

The third prominent symbol in the story is the lantern. Most prominently, the lantern represents the lack of insight and the desire to obtain it. With this purpose, the narrator makes “a very, very little crevice” in it and uses it to make the old man’s eye visible at night (Poe). By giving light to dark places, lanterns reveal the truth, which, in the case of the narrator, was destructive. Another point related to this symbol is that by using the lantern at night, the narrator underlines the humanity of the old man. Meanwhile, his own character is depicted as the evil one: the old man’s face is being lit up, whereas the narrator’s whole body is kept under the cover of gloom and blackness.

Symbols in Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” are the means of uncovering the dark secrets and explaining the motives behind dark deeds. The eye, the beating heart, and the lantern each play an essential role in revealing the personalities of two main characters. The eye serves as the reflection of the narrator’s thoughts, the heartbeat is the trigger to murder and, at the same time, the reason why the madman admits his deed. Finally, the lantern’s focus reflects the hidden thoughts, and its lack indicates the obscure personality of the narrator.

The short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is about a psychopath who butchers an old man with “vulture eye”(357), but ends with the lunatic’s guilty conscience driving him to confess his evil deed. In the beginning, the narrator became increasingly disturbed by the old man’s eye and planned to take the life of that man to rid himself of that very eye forever. When he finally murders the man on the eighth night, the madman mutilates the corpse and crams his remains underneath the floorboards. The next morning, police officers knock at his front door declaring that a neighbor reported hearing shriek in the middle of the night. Smug and confident that he would not be caught, the narrator invites them inside to examine the house. Conclusively, the man’s guilty conscience finally overwhelms his already precarious mind and leads him to acknowledge his deed saying, “Villains! Dissemble no more! admit the deed!–tear up the planks!–here, here!–it is the beating of his hideous heart!”(359). Poe cleverly exhibits a specific sentence style and uses punctuation that accentuates the story’s mood of horror. His dextrous use of figurative language also provides ample reinforcement for the mood of the story. Additionally, he uses dark irony to emphasize the horror by continually demonstrating negative emotions that people do not feel regularly. Therefore, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a story that keeps the reader on an edge, through Poe’s unique style that creates a dark and mysterious atmosphere.

Poe uses a unique sentence technique and syntax-stressing the story’s mood of horror. In the first paragraph, the reader stumbles upon a skittish narrator through the use of Poe’s choppy sentence form. As the story begins, the narrator attempts to defend his own sanity saying. “True!–nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I’ve been and am; but why will you say I am mad?” (354). After reading the introduction, the audience is progressively more and more apprehensive and doubtful whether they should trust the narrator, as the madman’s mental health does not seem to be stable. Next, the lunatic seems to be trying to persuade the readers and himself that he was not mad in any way. He appeared to be confident and believed that the crime he committed would not be noticed as he said, “I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye…could have detected anything wrong” (359). At this point in the story, the audience should notice that the psychopath’s mental state was erroneous as he constantly assured himself that he was sane, when it was apparent he was not, causing readers to doubt the words spoken by the narrator. In addition, just as the climax is about to transpire, Poe uses repetition to create a rhythm somewhat similar to a heartbeat. According to the narrator, the heartbeat sounds grew “louder-louder–louder!”(359), causing the narrator extreme pain. The two syllables within the word louder imitates the two “beats” of a heartbeat, building the tension and adrenaline, until the climax. Not only did Poe use a particular sentence style and punctuation, he also creatively used figurative language to express the mood of horror.

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Poe used figurative language throughout the story to emphasize horror trhough similes and metaphors. First, Poe uses dark imagery to describe the ray of light coming from the lantern. Using a simile, the madman described “a thin dim ray” and compared it to “the thread of a spider” (357). Poe takes the common fear of spiders, arachnophobia, and uses it to establish a negative atmosphere. Next, Poe uses the allusion “damned spot” to create a whole new meaning to the phrase. In the text, the narrator “directed the ray precisely upon the damned spot…”(359). The phrase is referring to a scene in Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth cannot wash out the blood dyed into her guilty conscience–foreshadowing that an event will occur having to do with guilt. After the psychopath brutally murders the old man, Poe uses a metaphor and repetition to emphasize his death. In the madman’s moment of triumph and pride, he repeats “Yes, he was stone, stone dead…He was stone dead”(357) several times. The lunatic sees the old man’s life as worthless as stone and is convinced that he is dead. Though Poe used figurative language, he also used dramatic irony.

Finally, Poe uses irony throughout his work to maintain a mood of horror. An example would be when the old man feared robbers, when he should have dreaded his caretaker. In the text, the “shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers”(355). Though the old man took careful precautions against robbers, he did not think to protect himself against his own caretaker. The lunatic believed that his crime would not be discovered–instead he himself confesses to his atrocity. He trusted that there was nothing to be afraid of saying, “What had I to fear?”(358). In the end, he concedes saying, “I admit the deed!”(359). The madman did not foresee that he would be the one acknowledging his wrong-doing–surprising the readers. In addition, the madman heard the thumping of the old man’s heart two times in the tale. He heard a “low, dull quick sound–much like a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton”(355). The man did not expect to hear the beating of the heart twice as he presumed him to be dead. So you see, Poe carefully used many types of dramatic irony to emphasize the mood of horror.

Lastly, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story that keeps its audience suspicious as it catches readers off guard, while maintaining a mood of horror. Poe used different sentence styles and punctuation, creating creepy sentences. He also used descriptive figurative language to create a dark atmosphere, along with dramatic irony. Edgar Allan Poe’s apparent style is disturbing and horrific through his details and imagery–achieving a mysterious tone to “The Tell-Tale Heart”.

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