"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe question #2

Myra Khan

9-10-2014

EN 102 –C6A/6C

"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe
2.  The two controlling symbols in the story are the eye and the heart. What is their significance in the story? Why do you think the author makes them so prominent?

There are many symbols in “The Tell-Tale Heart” such as the lantern and watch. But the most important symbols in the story are the eye and the heart, both which play a major role in the story. In the beginning of the play the eye is referred to starting on the second paragraph; ‘vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold;’ this shows that the narrator was scared of the eye because he felt like it showed death, not sure whose death in particular. Death because vultures are animals that stalk prey which they know are about to die, plus they usually eat carcasses of left over animals. Also people who are dead for a period of time, their eyes turn a glassy and foggy blue. (Color depends on the persons actual eyes). The eye can represent many things in the story, but I believe the eye signifies the narrator’s evil deeds that no one knows about. He feels like the eye could look past his façade and ‘see’ all the sins he has committed in his life time. Every time the ‘evil eye’ looks at him he thinks it will reveal his secrets, he cannot handle the pressure of his secrets being exposed, so he decides to get rid of it by killing the old man. This is why the author made the eye so noticeable.

The heart, is referred to on the night the narrator is about to kill the old man. He accidentally woke up the old man when sneaking in to the room, and as time passed the old man got scared and his heart started to race; that is how the narrator thought of the racing heartbeat. However I believe that the heartbeat wasn’t of the old man, but in fact of the narrator. He was being patient, but as time passed he grew anxious to get rid of the eye; which resulted in his heart rate increasing. Since the narrator thought it was the old man’s heart he got angrier making his own heart pound like drums. I say that it was the narrator’s heart, because no matter how ‘loud’ someone’s heart gets, no one really but the person himself can hear it. Also when the he attacked the old man he was so into killing him he forgot about the heartbeat; but when he heard it again with the officers in the room; it was probably his own heart racing because of guilt for killing the old man. The author made the heart important because it showed the narrators emotions.