ONE POE READER RESPONSE

The short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, is about a young man who could not bear the sight of an old man's "vulture" eyes. He did not hate the old man, it was just his eyes. Every night at the hour of midnight, the young man would quietly creep into the old man's house and shine the lantern on the old man's eye. He would just quietly stand and watch the old man sleep. The young man did this for seven nights straight. By the eighth night, the young man snuck into the old man's chamber once again. However, this time, the young man accidentally made noise that actually woke up the old man. This noise kept the old man up and frightened. The young man kept going however. He eventually shined the lantern's light only on the old man's eye. The old man was still wide awake...in terror. The young man finally decided to smash the old man with the bed, kill him, and hide his body under the planks of the room. The police decided to have a visit with him and check the premises. The young man felt confident they would not suspect anything but he could not bear the beating heart of the corpse. He gave up and took the blame for his doing. A quote that best represented the story would be, "The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them" (pg 3). This quote describes the sound that was heard only by the young man at the end of the story. His guilt over took him and he could not bear the bad deed he committed. He was not able to hide the body no more.

The young man played a significant role in the story, The Tell-Tale Heart. At the beginning of the story, he was a normal guy. However, there was something about the old man's eyes that drove him crazy. He absolutely had no problem with the old man. All he wanted to do was get rid of the old man's eyes.

Over time, his habit of visiting the old man every night started to change his personality. At this moment of the story, his whole life was enclosed to only the old man's eyes. He became spooky, mysterious, and weird. I mean, who sneaks into an old man's house and just watch him sleep. Talk about stalker or crazy psychopath!

At the end of the story, the young man just turned out to be a crazy psycho freak who killed old men because of their eyes. He was even crazy enough to hide the body. His mind just started running on its own without the young man's own thought. A quote from the story that best describes the young man would be, "I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer" (pg 8). This shows how crazy he finally gets and how he could bare things no longer.

There are many themes that could be categorized for this story. A theme that I think could fit this particular story would be guilt. This story includes the theme guilt because at the end of the story, the whole reason he was becoming crazy was because he felt guilty. His guilt would not let him go. It took advantage over him.

Another theme for this story would be karma. You know the whole saying that you should not do bad things because it will just come back to you. Well, this story is related to the theme karma because since he killed someone, he got the punishment of getting caught for it.

Deep down the story, the theme patience also came to my mind. This story can relate to the theme patience because the whole time, the young man was patiently trying to hold himself from violently ripping out the old man's eyes. However, as you can see, the young man had no patience at all.

So, the themes that related to this story would be guilt, karma, and patience. These themes are all characteristics that people witness or experience themselves in life. I would know because I experienced guilt, karma, and patience each more than once in my life. Trust me, they are themes you really do not want to encounter.