Tell Tell Heart: use of POV
Tell Tell Heart : Use of Point of View There is a belief that the eyes are windows to the soul. But to some, the soul resides in the heart. In Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tell Heart," he also links these two body parts. The story opens with this unnamed narrator telling of how he will kill the old man because-well the reason he gives-he dislikes his "Evil Eye" yet, in the end it is the old man's beating heart that drives the narrator to confess to the killing. Poe strategically employs first person narrative for the point of view because the reader receives an extended understanding of the narrator and it enhances the interest of the reader. The purpose for a first person narrative is often to give supplementary understanding of the story. With this style, Poe is capable of giving explanations to the motives of the narrator and his feelings of reflection after the killing too. The narrator explains, "One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture . . . Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold" (293). The narrator presents this as the motive to kill the old man. Since the eye represents the windows to the soul, the narrator distresses over the purest of the old man in comparison to his own making the old man's eye symbol
It is here that the irony begins because though the narrator feels assurance over his secret, it is not until the end that one comprehends the full effect of the point of view. Poe allows for the reader to perceive that he or she understands the entirety of story because of the first person narrative, but Poe twists the ending to leave the reader in perplexity and in this lies the great effect in his use of the point of view. In the few paragraphs at the conclusion of the story, the narrator reveals, "it was a low, dull quick sound-much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in a cotton" (298). This highlights the perception of the narrator convincing himself that he will not be caught. It is not someone else who detects his murder by clues but it is he who confesses, which contradicts his previous assurance that he would not be caught. This would be a logical motive, but since Poe does not mention or hint at this fact, it can be ruled out; it leaves the notion that the narrator has no logical motive for his killing besides the eye makes his "blood run cold. When the reader leaves the story, he or she will always wonder to the validity of the plot thus ensuing the connotation of curiosity in the unknown. The point of view allows the reader to realize the full assurance of the narrator that he would not be caught. Since he has no reason to kill the man, may it be that he formulates a reason so he may have one? After he hides the body and the police stop by to investigate the "shriek" during the night, the narrators expresses, "I smiled,-for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome" (298). Does one ever stop to think that sometimes stories concentrate on only part of the problems in the world by direction and control of the point of view because it cannot provide an answer for all of them? Or protecting us from understanding too much? . The narrator fears nothing because in his mind, he feels that he had hid the body with calculated measures even the old man's eye would not notice. Poe uses the point of view to pace the story to a suspenseful twist of irony at the end where the narrator confesses to the killing of the old man. The narrator hears the beating of the old man's heart. Because of his illogical motive for killing the man, there is a feeling of insanity in the air thus ruling out the notion that the narrator hears the beating heart in response to his guilt.
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