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Literary Elements Of The Tale Tell Heart

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The short story the Tale Tell Heart, Edger Allen Poe uses many literary elements to show the theme of the story. Some of the literary elements that Poe uses are first person narrator, interior monologue, and cosmic irony. With these elements Poe is able to display the theme of the story which is, we are afraid of the things we don’t understand and a guilty conscience will win out in the end. These are the themes and elements of Poe’s short story. Poe uses first person narration all throughout this story. He does this by using past tense language as if he was telling you this in person. By using this element of first person narration it is able appeal more to the reader in an emotional way. The reader feels as if the protagonist is …show more content…

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. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever”(41). This brings up one of the themes of the story, we are afraid of what we don’t understand. The Protagonist was afraid of the old mans eye, he describes it as blue with a film over it. This indicates that the old man was blind in that one eye. It is natural for us humans to be afraid of what we don’t understand, it is so then understandable that the protagonist was afraid of the eye. If the protagonist took time to understand the reason why the was the that it was, he might have not killed the old man in the at all. We can learn from this and realize that we are not all made the same and some people my have abnormalities that others are creeped out by. If we take time to learn about one another and not jump to conclusions then the world would be a better place. At the ending of the story Poe uses cosmic irony when the Protagonist can no longer stand the sound of the old mans beating heart. Poe uses this kind of irony to show that a guilty conscience will most of the time win out or

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