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Claire Graham

Dr. Sterling

ENGL 1302

22 June 2017

Point of View and Its Impact on The Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allen Poes short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, is told in first person point of view,

by an unreliable narrator. When unreliable narrator tells the story what he or she says, cannot be

taken at face value, depending on whether the narrator is delusional, biased, or gives the

audience reason to believe that the narrator would lie (What). Since The Tell-Tale Heart is

written from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, the rest of the work is impacted by the

narrator and his perspective on the situation. This perspective not only drives the plot, but it

changes the way that the story is read.

The narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart is inherently unreliable; some narrators are such

terrible people that they cannot tell their stories objectively. In general, even people who commit

the worst crimes justify their actions to themselves, (What). The narrator of The Tell-Tale

Heart tells his story as a soliloquy, beginning with assuring the audience that he is not mad

(Poe). Directly after he clarifies that he is sane, he begins explaining his reasoning for the murder

of his elderly housemate, despite not having any hard feelings towards the housemate. The

narrator explains that he decided to murder the elderly man because of the housemates vulture-

like, and most likely cataract ridden, eye (Poe). The juxtaposition between the narrator claiming

that he is perfectly sane and his actions that clearly suggest otherwise, allows the audience to

understand early on that not everything that the narrator says occurs the way that he claims t.
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Throughout the work, the narrator losses more credibility, especially in the ending of The Tell-

Tale Heart where the narrator begins hearing the old mans heart beating underneath the

floorboards, despite the narrator knowing that the old man is dead (Poe).

The first-person point of view that The Tell-Tale Heart is told from is important to the

plot of the story because it allows the audience to not just see the actions of the narrator, from the

stalking and killing of the old man to the final confrontation with the police officers, but the

understand the motivation and thought process of the narrator as well. In addition to granting the

audience insight into the motivation of killing the old man, having the story told in first person,

by the murderer, is important to convey the ending of the story. The story of The Tell-Tale

Heart ends with the police officers investigating the house, the narrator asking them to stay for a

while to talk, and then concludes with the narrator hearing the heart beat of the dead housemate,

until he can no longer bear it, and confessing to the murder (Poe). Without the story being told

in first person, the narrators outbreak would make no sense to the audience; without

understanding that the narrator believed that he was hearing the old mans heartbeat through the

floorboards, the audience would not understand the commotion that the murderer caused at the

end of the story.

Besides affecting the plot, the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart sets the tone for the story

by being unreliable. Many writers use an unreliable narrator when writing horror and

supernatural fictionwho want readers to question the line between fantasy and reality,

(What). Since the story is told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, the audience

goes into the story leery, which can lead to heightened emotions, especially when the narrator

begins to hear the heartbeat of the man that the narrator murdered and then dismembered. The

tone of the work is set by the lines of sanity and insanity [blurring] into a nightmare
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atmosphere, (Witherington). The story being told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator

impacts the tone into something more sinister than The Tell-Tale Heart would be if narrated in

another way.

Being told from a different point of view, whether it was from a reliable narrator or from

third person would dramatically change the tone impact that the narrator has on The Tell-Tale

Heart. Having a reliable narrator entails that the story is told from another characters point of

view, either the old man or one of the police officers, because the current narrators

unreliableness is part of his characterization; without the narrator being clearly insane and

unreliable, it is unlikely that he would have killed the old man for having an eye that haunted

him, and it is equally unlikely that he would have an auditory hallucination of his dead

housemates heartbeat. However, if any of the other characters told The Tell-Tale Heart from

their perceptive, the story would be incomplete. The old housemate could only give account for

the first half of the story whereas the police officers could only report on the second half. If The

Tell-Tale Heart was told by a third-person omniscient narrator, the narrator could explain the

motivation for murdering the elderly housemate and explain when the murderer began to

imagine that he could hear the heartbeat of the old man, but the story would not have the same

tone of suspense that it has with the unreliable first-person point of view. Without the current

narrator, the story either has an incomplete plot, or it lacks emotional impact.

The point of view of The Tell-Tale Heart affects the entirety of the story. Having the

audience see the story through the lenses of an unreliable narrator provides the audience to both a

unique perspective and insight. The first-person narration of the story gives the audience the

ability to watch the story unfold in a way that would be otherwise impossible. Additionally, the

narration sets the tone for the piece, without the narrator being the murder, The Tell-Tale Heart
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would be less dramatic and suspenseful. The point of view of the story allows for the audience to

fully experience the madness that Edgar Allen Poe captures in The Tell-Tale Heart.
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Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allen. The Tell-Tale Heart. The Tell-Tale Heart - Poe's Works | Edgar Allan Poe Museum,

Poe Museum, www.poemuseum.org/the-tell-tale-heart. Accessed 22 June 2017.

What Is an Unreliable Narrator? - Narration. Now Novel, 3 Feb. 2016,

www.nownovel.com/blog/unreliable-narrator/. Accessed 22 June 2017.

Witherington, Paul. The Accomplice in 'the Tell-Tale Heart'. Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 22,

Newberry College, 1985, p. 471. Academic Search Complete, lscsproxy.lonestar.edu/login?

url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid&custid=s1088435&db=a9h&AN=8935519&site=ehost-live.

Accessed 22 June 2017.