Analyzing

             "The Tell-Tale Heart" was first published as a "horror" story in James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer in January 1843, and it appeared again in The Broadway Journal on August 23, 1845. The story narrates the process of a planned murder of an old man by, what appears to be, his caregiver of many years. Poe presents the murderer as an unreliable narrator by repetitive, horrific and questionable expressions throughout "The Tell-Tale Heart".
             We can see repetition right away with, the narrator accusing the reader of thinking that he is "mad", meaning mentally unstable: "...but why then will you say I am mad? [...] You fancy me mad...if still you think me mad, you will think so no longer". Then, desperately, tries to convince the reader he is justified: "...How then am I mad? [...] would a madman have been so wise as this? [...] what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses" There's no possible way for the murderer to know what the reader is thinking. Yet still he insists the reader is thinking that he is mad and then tries to combat this thought. Perhaps he is nervous or in denial. Obviously, the murderer is frantically trying to convince the reader he is not, in any way, unstable, evidenced by this repetitiveness. A reader could conclude that the repetition of the murderer's argument of whether he's "mad" or not asks the question whether or not he actually is "mad". Another example is a beating sound that is described as: "a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton...It was a low, dull, quick sound -- much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton."
             You need not look far to begin to grasp the horror of the story through its many expressions of terror. The horrific details are portrayed from the beginning. He tells the reader: "I made up my mind to take the life of the ol...

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