Tell Tale Heart example essay topic

"It is after eleven. I shall be gone in less than an hour. But the heat is stifling. It is enough to send a man mad". (August Heat, pg. 390) This quote is showing the suspense at the end of the story. It does not tell the readers exactly what will occur, but it implies the man is murdered.

It leaves us hanging. In the "Tell Tale Heart", it also ends in a similar way". 'Villains!' I shriek, 'dissemble no more! I admit the deed!

-Tear up the planks! -Here, here! -is is the beating of his hideous heart!" The short stories, "August Heat" and "The Tell Tale Heart", are similar in that their authors employ a wide variety of structures in order to create suspense. In "August Heat", an artist discovers that his fate is carved in stone. He is hit with a variety of strange occurrences. "A sudden impulse made me enter". (386) His twisted fate is what is behind these occurrences.

The story is known to take place in the dog days of summer, the time of year where dogs are known to go mad, due to the heat. The artist is aware of this heat, and so is the stonemason he converses with in the shop that he had the urge to enter. "At the end of every minute he would drop his tools, wipe his shinning head, and curse the heat". (387). But instead of making just the dogs go mad, the weather also drives a human insane, or so the story implies. (390).

In "The Tell Tale Heart", a mad man commits a brutal murder because of an obsession he has, all while explaining to the reader that he is completely sane because of his cleverness he possessed while committing the murder. "Ha! Would a madman have been do wise?" (374). After he commits the murder, he goes into great detail describing the way he buries the body beneath the planks in the floor and destroys the evidence.

He then goes mad with guilt. Once the police arrive to investigate the death, he begins to hear the beating of the victim's heart. Eventually, he gives in and tells the police everything". 'Villains!' I shrieked, 'dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks!

Here! Here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!" (378). The story "August Heat" takes place on August 20th; the year is unknown, in Penis tone Road, Clapham. It is in the dog days of summer, usually that takes place between mid July and early September. The heat is just excruciating.

The author writes the story with the setting that is very plain and ordinary, perhaps making the reader believe that James Withencroft is nothing out of the ordinary. The description of streetcars, pavement and gardens intensify the terror by making the reader believe that anyone, even themselves could encounter such a twisted and uncertain fate. The readers may use the imagination, put themselves there, making the readers convinced that it is more likely to occur. The story "The Tell Tale Heart" takes place in an elderly man's home to which his caretaker has become dangerously obsessed with the old man's eye.

"I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture. A pale blue eye with film over it". (373) It appears that the man had taken about a week developing the thought, plan and right time to murder the old man. "I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him".

(373) The time the story took place was in the middle of the night, because the old man was asleep. "I moved in very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep". (374) The murder was committed in a pitch black chamber room, because "for even the shutters were fastened, through fear of robbers". (374) When the murder was finished, he took the dismembered body and began to hide them in the wooden planks of the floorboard. He then tidied what needed to be tidied and began the tour with the police. James Withencroft, the main character in "August Heat" was an artist by profession, though "not a very successful one".

(385) But makes just enough to make ends meet. He claims never to been sick a day in his life and the author creates sympathy by stating that his only last living relative, a sister, has now been deceased for 5 years. He is somehow attracted to a beautiful garden which he realizes is located next to a stone mason's shop. He begins to converse with the man, whose name is Charles Atkinson.

Both men loathe the dreadful heat, but particularly Charles. "At the end of every other minute would drop his tools, wipe his shinning forehead and curse the heat". (387) Charles was enormously fat and not clean shaven. As they began talking more, it appeared that Charles' face had developed into the one that he had drawn earlier that morning. In "The Tell Tale Heart", it is difficult to define the characters involved. The characters involved are the nameless narr orator, which could be male or female because E.A. Poe only uses "I" and "me" in reference to it.

I believe it to be male because E.A. Poe is male himself and writes in the first person. Other characters are the police who come to investigate the scream reported by the neighbour and the old man, the victim in this story. The narrorater is clearly insane, yet states several times during the story that he is perfectly sane because of the cleverness he possessed while coming the evil deed. "Ha!

Would a madman have been so wise? (374) The murder victim was an old man, and the murderer was believed to be his caretaker. He had one pale blue eye, which was filmed over. This obsession drove the murderer to commit such an act. The murderer thought he was so clever, so smart, yet it was his own guilt that drove him to the confession of the murder to the police". 'Villians!' I shrieked.

Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here! Here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!" (378) The two stories "August Heat" by William Fryer Harvey and "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe are comparative, as seen in the previous paragraphs.

Both stories involve murders. In "August Heat", the character is the victim, and in "The Tell Tale Heart", the character is the murderer. Both short stories are written in first person. Both stories create suspense, in "August Heat", you do not know there even is a murder until the very end, and it even then is debatable, as the author never clearly states the outcome of the character. In "The Tell Tale Heart", the murder is committed rather quickly in the story, and the suspense is whether the madman will be caught. Each story was descriptive, suspenseful, twisted and intense.