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An Analysis of “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe

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“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”— Edgar Allan Poe | The Masque of the Red Death

To shield oneself from death is to hide from the inevitable. But death can will find you; after all, it finds all living beings at one point or another. Now, whether you make good of that surety, or try to lock yourself in a palace of ignorance is your choice I suppose. But remember: Death will always find you! In Edgar Allan Poe‘s “The Masque of the Read Death,” the protagonist find themselves confronted with death as it seeps through the fortress walls and into a sightly party.

Summary

“The Masque of the Red Death” tells the tale of an upper class party that has quarantined itself from the rest of society. A plague has swept the city (more than likely the bubonic plague). Prince Prospero, who is in charge of this party, has gone through great lengths of seclusion to keep his cohorts safe from this “Red Death.”

Poe writes of Prospero: “But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys” (Poe). The crowd is enthralled with the lavish masquerade party, Poe tells us. Yet, while they are gleefully enjoying their party, a masked figure arrives and begins moving toward a room that is otherwise off-limits to the guests. He dresses in a crimson costume and moves through the crowds unnaffected.

As Prospero follows the stranger, he becomes frightened by the figure’s ghostly movement. So, Prospero decides to engage this foreboding character. However, he gets more than he bargained. As a final act, the figure reveals nothing underneath its robe, and the sight of this invisible assailant kills Prospero outright.

Analysis

The Title

It is worthwhile to note that the word “masque,” that Poe used in the title, has a double meaning. The strange figure who appears is the “masque of the Red Death.” Meanwhile, other meanings stem from court entertainment in the 16th and 17th centuries. The masque itself was a form of festival, pageant, or play performed by “actors wearing masks.”

As stated by Britannica, the masque featured “costumed and masked persons” who “arrived at a social gathering to dance and talk with guests. The masque could both be a simple parade or a lavish spectacle and event.

Story Elements

Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death,” though portentous in tone, has lovely atmosphere and a frightful villain. The idea of hosting a gallant party while a plague sweeps across the country has a certain charm. Perhaps one that hits too close to home. In modern terms, the Red Death could certainly symbolize Covid. Yet, the fear of sickness has always been a pervasive fear in society. The quarantine put into affect in various countries definitely mirrors Prince Prospero’s holdout in the castle.

However, we also know the vile nature of hiding from death if only to save yourself from its clutches for a short while longer. Of course, Prospero learns this all too late when his fate is sealed at the finale. The innate flaws in his character (being narcissistic and wealthy) ultimately bring his life to a close. The story itself is about running from death–thematically–as a means to avoid its touch; but, as with most Poe stories, the protagonist suffers a horrible fate due to their own malicious intent.

The story ends beautifully. Poe writes: “He had come like a thief in the night … one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay … the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all” (Poe).

The characters had reveled in their security, high above the uncultured swine, and they fell fast and hard just as the rest. Death cannot be escaped whether you live in desperate, plague-laden penury, or you are in lavish luxury. It will find you, and it will claim you in the end.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Masque of the Red Death.” The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Arthur Hobson Quinn, Anchor Books, 1975, pp. 345-352.

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The Raven Analysis: ‘Nevermore’ and the Descent into Despair

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For the average reader, there are too many fantastic literary experiences when reading through the litany of classic literature to count. However, maybe the most common is when one reads “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe for the very first time. It goes without saying that Poe’s poem is remarkable in every conceivable way. The introduction itself–“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary”–is so iconic and mechanically sound that one has to wonder if a divine creature gifted this line to Poe. Maybe from some Plutonian shore. Yet, Poe has many fantastic poems that should be shared and revered. In this post, we will analyze the language of “The Raven,” and discover what makes it such a famous piece of writing.

Details and Background

Poe’s “The Raven” was published in January 1845 in the Evening Mirror. Poe wrote the poem in trochaic octameter (eight trochaic metrical feet per line). In addition, he constructs these in 18 stanzas of six lines apiece. Each foot has a stressed syllable that is followed by one unstressed. This unmistakable rhythm creates a hypnotic, smooth flow that moves like a moonlit, phantom curtain drifting by balcony wind.

Meanwhile, the story in the poem details a chattery raven’s efforts to drive a forlorn narrator insane. By entering his room late one night, he perches himself high above and speaks a single word.

That word is: “Nevermore.”

Sitting on a bust of Pallas (Athena), the raven caws and croaks the word ad nauseum to the point of frustration. Though, at first, the narrator thinks this erstwhile corvid is some messenger from God due to love lost–his immortal Lenore. Soon, the narrator has a change of opinion toward the raven. He no longer feels it is from God. Instead, he decides that it is a “prophet” and “thing of evil” for its endless, three-syllable recital.

The escalation of the narrator’s terror and madness brings forth deeper themes set in the poem’s lines. These matching motifs mirror Poe’s brilliant introduction. The narrator states in the following passage:

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

In the end, the narrator falls to his own madness. He is unable to escape the memories and sadness of his lost love. The torment that the raven brought to him was too palpable and he falls prostrate before the bird.

In the last section, we must imagine the narrator in a frenzy of torment and anguish, finally giving in to his own psychosis.

He states:

“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!”

Analysis of “The Raven”

Setting and Plot

Poe sets “The Raven” during one late December evening, cold comfort by the fire. The setting speaks volumes of the narrator, a scholar, and his quest for solitude. His fragile psyche hangs there with him in his empty room, save for his books and memories. Memories of a lost Lenore. This anguish pushes him into the depths of despair, and a nuisance–a raven–further pushes him into that well of traumas best forgotten.

Poe writes that the Raven “never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,” to emphasis to the reader the creature’s unflinching antagonism. “And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, / And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;” Poe writes to further this dimension. A demon, basking in the lamplight, shadow thrown huge, watches in menace as the narrator fumbles the slippery bonds of sanity.

“And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor / Shall be lifted—nevermore!”

Themes and Legacy

There are dark themes in this poem. There is grief and remembrance, suffering, insanity, and voices from beyond the grave. The narrator remembers his lost love and suffers from this wound. A raven, no doubt messenger of the dead, emerges to remind him of this darkness. It perches itself above the bust of Pallas, which though a representation of rational, firm judgement, brings forth Poe’s remarks of darkness, symbolizing the pall of death superseding the narrator’s own logic. Understanding this, or, conceivably, as a perfunctory motion, the raven taunts the harrowed narrator.

Other authors, such as Dana Gioia, have stated that Poe presents readers with an unforgettable narrative. This, is the secret to its enduring legacy.

Gioia writes:

“It is a narrative of haunting lyricality, to be sure, but its central impulse is to tell a memorable story. The hypnotic swing of the trochaic meter, the insistent chime of the internal rhymes, and its unforgettable refrain of ‘Nevermore’ provide each stanza with a song-like intensity …”

Doubtless, as legendary verse, Poe’s poem will continue on as likely the best representation of the cleverness, creativity, and audacity of American poetry. Yet, for the average reader, it is simply a great poem to read on a cool, dark evening when the trees rustle by moonlight air and the wind blows quietly, as if a specter by firelight. One can imagine a raven is there, perchance even the raven, perched in a branch above them, flecks of firelight illuminating its black eyes; and out in the night there come whispers of the lost Lenore, while the raven itself is sitting, still is sitting, and calls out into the night: “Nevermore.”

If you are looking for a particularly well-read version, I would recommend Christopher Lee’s reading, which you can find here.

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True Detective Season 1: Weird Fiction, The Yellow King, and Cosmic Dread

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Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, which had a profound impact on True Detective season 1, was a strange book even for its time. While ostensibly a collection of short stories, it is in fact a hidden narrative of psychosis and madness. There (somewhere) in the text is the story of The King in Yellow and a play that drives anybody who reads it mad.

If you compare this to the first season of True Detective, one can see that strange visions, an eerie setting, and the shifting of time fit within these weird fiction parameters. In this post, we are going to look at how Writer Nic Pizzolatto and Director Cary Joji Fukunaga collaborated and created one of the greatest seasons of television put to film.

What is Weird Fiction? Definition of the Bizarre

Weird fiction is a genre of writing that focuses predominantly on the supernatural. These supernatural elements include the strange, eerie, and unexplainable. It explores the limits of the human mind and includes cosmic horror, forbidden knowledge, and encounters with horrific adversaries. Much of the time, writers in this genre blend horror, fantasy, and science fiction.

Authors in this genre crafted varying stories of horror and the inexplicable. Some stories featured men envisioning their own safety shortly before execution, while others featured travelers encountering long-dead gods thought to be asleep. These stories were strong departures for the norm. They caused audience to think and fear the unknown. What is more troubling then the dark and mysterious eons of eternity? According to weird fiction authors–not much.

A Brief History of Weird Fiction

While it’s difficult to say just when weird fiction came about, one can argue that it was popularized in the 19th and 20th centuries. Authors Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and Algernon Blackwood contributed largely to the development of this style. Poe focused his efforts on horror and the macabre. He showcased his talents in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Bierce, meanwhile, used elements borrowed from ghost stories in his tales, such as in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Blackwood, meanwhile, emphasized the eeriness of the world and nature, such as in the story “The Willows.”

The genre became popular with the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, who focused his stories on cosmic horror and joined them together with the Cthulhu mythos. Meanwhile, other writers within his circle–including Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard–wrote similar stories that contributed to this genre. For example, Howard’s most notable creation, Conan, ventured into the realms of sword and sorcery. However, most, if not all, of his stories had something supernatural included, such as monsters, sorcerers, and dark forgotten lands.

Weird Fiction in True Detective

In the context of True Detective, the influences are obvious if you know where to look. Ideas from the aforementioned Robert W. Chambers and H.P. Lovecraft make appearances. Mystery writers impacted the show as well. These influences include Raymond Chandler and, most notably, Edgar Allan Poe’s detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, who solved the murders in the Rue Morgue. Writer Nic Pizzolatto was a teacher and aspiring writer before his breakout success with the first season of True Detective. Before the show ever took form, he wrote short stories that he published in Between Here and the Yellow Sea (2006). In this way, the literariness of the first season is evident.

Meanwhile, the show also utilizes philosophies that ere on a darker side, including Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Alan Moore. The shows belief system operates consistently. For instance, Cohle exudes nihilism and there are nihilistic experiences throughout the show. Meanwhile, Marty tries to stay positive even though he is flawed, which leads to the final uplifting line of the show. With consistent beliefs in place, the themes and tones of the show are both vibrant and engaging.

Cosmic Visions from Beyond the Pale

Weird fiction is all over the first season of True Detective. The plot, the characters, the setting, and the overall tone are pulled straight from a turn-of-the-century pulp magazine with a few updates.

The first thing worth mentioning is Rustin Spence “Rust” Cohle’s visions. Cohle, played adroitly by Matthew McConaughey, experiences strange lines of light and visions of strange symbols. Some online reviewers have opined that Cohle seems to suffer from synesthesia, which is “a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (for example, hearing) leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory pathway (such as vision)” (Psychology Today). In other words, one’s senses cross over into other senses creating visions of sound or the noises of visuals.

In Ep. 1, Cohle sees True Detective’s version of Chamber’s the Yellow Sign in the form of birds flying through the sky. This symbol mesmerizes Cohle, and unsettles the audience, as the same sign was apparent on the skin of a deceased woman shortly before. Moreover, throughout much of the series we find that Cohle hallucinates sensory experiences, and sees streaming lights as he drives. In the final episode of the season, Cohle hallucinates a void that ostensibly reveals the otherworldly nature of the antagonist, whether he imagines it or not.

Cohle’s hallucinations are very much inspired by Lovecraftian lore, and more particularly the monsters that hide in the shadows. These are the others that humanity can’t see with their own eyes and with their own senses. It is the world beyond the veil. In “The Music of Erich Zann,” by H.P. Lovecraft, the protagonist finds himself in a wretched battle of survival against the forces of the unseen and with the void itself, that whirls, mocking, outside of Zann’s window. Likewise, in “The Dunwich Horror” by the same author, a massive invisible monster wreaks havoc on a community, killing many, and leaving invisible footprints in its wake.

Thusly, True Detective‘s emphasis on an invisible world and the fantasy of H.P. Lovecraft come together within the genre. Cohle’s ability to see beyond the veil grants him a focus that other lawmen do not possess, and it ultimately allows him to solve the murders. In contrast, many of Lovecraft’s protagonists encounter the horrors of beyond by proxy. Yet, they must cross this invisible veil in order to see the truth of the world in which they live. While True Detective may not use literal monsters, the monster(s) in the first season still hides amongst the weeds, and beyond the veil of reality.

Carcosa as a Weird Setting

Continuing, one could draw tangible parallels to Carcosa, in which the literal land and old fort where Erroll Childress has taken up his rituals are hidden in the swamps of Louisiana. Carcosa, as it is used in the show, was no doubt inspired by The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, but it comes from Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” (1886). Chambers, an author or darkly atmospheric peices, borrowed from Bierce, another author of similar caliber. In response, Pizzolatto borrowed from them.

In examination, we can see parallels between the way in which it was implemented in True Detective season 1, and how it is portrayed in other works. As it was originally conceptualized by Ambrose Bierce in 1895, it is an eerie and foreboding place. It is inhabited by death and decay, and haunted by an undead narrator. Meanwhile, in Robert W. Chambers’s The King in Yellow collection, Carcosa is realized in a foreboding play that can literally drive the reader to madness. The land of Carcosa exists within the text as a haunted or “cursed” place. Chambers references it as “lost” and “dim” and filled with black stars and lost moons. The paradoxical nature of its descriptions feed into the cosmic horror of it all.

Chambers writers:

“Strange is the night where black stars rise,/
And strange moons circle through the skies,/ But stranger still is/
Lost Carcosa.”

Meanwhile, in True Detective, we find that the killer, Erroll Childress, has created a sort of ritual chamber within a labyrinth in an old Civil War fort. Director Fukunaga and company discovered this place while scouting locations in Louisiana. Carcosa, in this instance, is not possibly cursed, but is absolutely cursed by the death of innocent children. If it is not cursed by children, then at least by the real tragedies that have occurred there, such as ritualistic sacrifice, torture, and rape.

In response to fan theories about the shows relationship to Chambers’s The King in Yellow, Fukanaga stated: “I think for Nic (Pizzolatto ), he definitely enjoys those references. For us we’ll take the signifiers in terms of content and lace them throughout. So, yes, it definitely did. Black stars. Different forms of yellow are definitely peppered throughout the show.” Some references were “planned,” he stated, and some were “spontaneous.”

The Shifting Sands of Time

Time is a strange beast in weird fiction. Often, time is the deus ex machina in the story that helps the protagonist miraculously appear somewhere else to succeed. Often times, they traverse time to simply die in the horrors of an infinitesimal void. For example, many of Lovecraft’s stories feature characters passing out in danger and then waking up in safety. “Dagon,” (1917) for example, features a narrator who loses his grip on reality when confronted by a horrible fish God. He wakes up near his boat some time later unsure of how he had clawed his way from near death.

This is strange, but intentionally so to subvert the reader’s chance at understanding the horror of something so horrible.

Time also works differently in this genre. In Chamber’s The King in Yellow, the narrator of “The Repairer of Reputations” has considerable past damages to be aware of and important work to look forward to in the future. Meanwhile, in “The Mask,” the protagonist must wait patiently for a revelation to occur in order to understand the effects of a magical liquid. Additionally, we find dreams and alleys contorted in the text that revel in a complete understanding of time and space. It cannot be so because of our conventional understanding of time as a linear construct as opposed to views of time out of sequence.

In True Detective season 1, the initial scenes feature Rust and Marty investigating the death of a woman named Dora Lange in 1995. This is intercut with interviews with them in the future. By playing with time, Fukanaga is able to distort the audeinces’s own sense of what is happening in a rational way. We know mystery stories in chronological sequence: first they work together to get clues, and then they get the bad guy. Yet, in True Detective season 1, the flashforwards give us a sense of unease. Cohle is wearing a jumpsuit that is oddly similar to prison clothing, and he gives his interview in a sterile environment that is befitting a prison cafeteria. This misdirection plays with the idea of time and makes the audience question what exactly happened in the intervening years.

Meanwhile, the Yellow King in the show has a cooldown period that is less consistent than most famous serial killers, like Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. This irregularity invites comparisons to the oddity of time in the genre and how time plays a crucial role. There are multiple victims in the show, but the years seem to range from 1990 (possibly earlier) to 1995. That gives a rough cool down period of every 5 years. Again, time works as a thematic element in this way, and allows Cohle to believe that he may strike again.

Later in the season, as older men and investigators, Cohle and Marty continue to search for the Yellow King. Their reflections on previous investigations lead to both conflict and resolution. They learn to work together, but acknowledge how the years have slipped away. Time is like that in weird fiction. While it can operate as a deus ex machina, it is also a reminder that the frailty of life is over in an instant.

In Conclusion

Weird fiction permeates off of True Detective season 1. The use of this genre’s tropes is effective when melded with the mysterious natures of Cohle’s visions, the setting, and the usage of time. As viewers, we are pulled into the world of weird fiction, and we are invited to engage with a story that is unrelenting, violent, and filled with surprises. Nonetheless, there are many more weird fiction stories out there that use the conventions of weird fiction as a catalyst to pull us into the unreality of their very own Carcosa.

Works Cited

Psychology Today. “Synthesia.” Sussex Publishers, LLC. 2023. Web. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/synesthesia

Guerrasio, Jason. “True Detective Director Cary Fukunaga on the Yellow King Theories.” Esquire. March 2, 2014. Web. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/interviews/a27619/true-detective-cary-fukunaga-interview/

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“The Conqueror Worm” by Edgar Allan Poe

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In this post, we are going to discuss Edgar Allan Poe by referencing more of his excellent poetry. In this case, in discussing “The Conqueror Worm” by Poe, we find that, much like “The Raven,” it’s mechanically sound. It also has an undercurrent of evil, which is unequivocally menacing: “It writhes! –It writhes!” It’s also a magnificent addition to Poe’s already airtight catalogue of horror and suspense.

The “Conquer Worm” in this case can be seen as death at the end of a tumultuous play. The fear, the fright, and the violence present in his works is always something worth investigating, as it is rarely just that, but more symptomatic of a deeper psychological undercurrent. Take for instance the following lines: “Out—out are the lights—out all! / And, over each quivering form, / The curtain, a funeral pall.” The “funeral pall” in question is one of death and it inevitability. Of course, relating this back to gothic horror is essential because it’s Poe, so we can’t leave out the guilt and sin aspect. Fear as the “quivering form” can only allude to those masses in shaking terror–sinners be damned to Hell.

“The Conqueror Worm” by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! ’t is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

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“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe: The Heart of Madness

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It is a dark night, and the rain lights up the sidewalks with the lamps looming in the darkness, casting their eerie phantom light. In a nearby house, a horrible cry pierces the night; a crime has been committed. The motive? Insanity and insatiable fixation. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a gruesome story. A most gruesome story.

Synopsis

American author Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is about descending into that madness with no escape. We as the reader, are compelled to feel a little for the narrator. We feel for him as he goes into great detail about his insanity…and how rational that insanity is to himself. This isn’t necessarily untrodden ground for Poe. Ultimately, with a little insight, we come to understand a sort of true madness and how easily it can take an unsound mind.

Summary
The First of It

To begin, the narrator himself questions the reader, “but why will you say that I am mad?” because after all, the crime is from his perspective, and therefore he is in the right. He has the ability to “calmly … tell you the whole story.” As he goes on to say, “The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.” The acuteness is actually his fixation on an old man that lives in his home with him. An old man with an “eye of a vulture–a pale blue eye, with a film over it …”

The narrator looks into the old man's room only to find the light on his eye.

“When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little—a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it—you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily—until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

“It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness—all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot” (Poe).

He really is much maligned by being overly focused on what others would consider seemingly inconsequential matters. That is, through the narrator’s own delusion, he finds the old man’s eye (ostensibly a malady) to be distressing; consequently, he plans to kill the man regardless of how kind he had been to the narrator.

The Murder

The narrator, consumed by his own insanity, murders the man and cuts him to pieces, burying the parts beneath the floorboards. The plotting of this crime feeds into Poe’s own acuteness, and his own understanding of a troubled mind. As such, the narrator is able to wait for a long time, which he mentions at multiple points throughout the story, going so far as to state, “when I had waited a long time, very patiently…” which goes to show the man was able to maintain formalities for a time while he plotted the most devious deed.

“But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me—the sound would be heard by a neighbour! … This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more” (Poe).

Harry Clarke The Tell-Tale Heart.jpg

Regardless of his plotting, the police are summoned due to the old man crying out during the murder, and with a tipoff from a concerned neighbor, they investigate the narrator’s home. The narrator, confident in his crime, asks the investigators to sit with him over the spot where he hid the dismembered body. Eventually, the sound of the old man’s beating heart–a sound that had plagued the narrator before he murdered him–comes back to haunt him (literally).

The End of It

But before this, the narrator again shows his madness in both his cheerful disposition and his ability to charm even though human remains are just beneath their feet. “I smiled,–for what had I to fear? … The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them.” In other words, his ability to maintain composure, to exact a sort of stage play for the officers at large showcase his disturbed mind; and, interestingly enough, his own psychopathy allows him to see past his own shortcomings and into a mire of hubris.

After too long, the narrator throws himself at the mercy of the police, unable to take the sound of the beating heart any longer. He shows them where he buried the body. The story ends with the narrator screaming: “Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

Conclusion

And thus, his madness in the light, the narrator has give up his murderous endeavor, and finds himself at the mercy of the law. His insanity, or perceived sanity, matters little as the gallows haunt the night sky and his future. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe has shown us a different side of insanity. Our narrator has been proven insane and the matter of murder lays at rest, like a quiet, still corpse.

References

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1, Project Gutenberg, 1996, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2148. Accessed 26 July 2024