The Tell-Tale

Heart
By Edgar Allan Poe

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?

The Tell-Tale Heart

Statements

People who are

insane always
know that they
are insane.
Sane people
sometimes
imagine that they
hear things.
If you commit a
major crime,
sooner or later
you will be
caught.
When youve done
something wrong,
its agony to
wonder if youll be

You
Agr
ee

You
Disagr
ee

Narrat
or
Agree
s

Narrat
or
Disagr
ees

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

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 doesnt 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?

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?

The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

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.'

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 Poes The Tell-Tale Heart using
the following plot map.

The Tell-Tale Heart

PlotMountain.notebook

The Tell-Tale
Heart
By Edgar Allan Poe

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.

Suspense
Uh-oh, the police.

The Tell-Tale Heart

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 th

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

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)

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?

The Tell-Tale Heart

Why do you think this story has
remained so popular over all these
years?

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_ta
le_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.