The Tell-Tale Heart
Read the following excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Then follow the steps in the handout to analyze the passage.
I had my head in. and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening. and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out—”Who’s there?” I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting upon the bed. listening:—just as I have done, night after night. hearkening to the death watches’ in the wall. Presently I heard a slight roan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal tenor. It was not a groan of pain or of grief—oh. no!—it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I blew the sound well. Many a night. just at midnight. when all the world slept. it has welled up from my own bosom. deepening. with its dreadful echo, the tenors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt. and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself—”it is nothing but the wind in the chimney—it is only a mouse crossing the floor.” or “it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.” Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain: because Death. in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel—although he neither saw nor heard—to feel the presence of my head within the room.
•Death watches are beetles that bore into wood, especially of old houses and furniture. Some superstitious people
