Poe :: essays research papers

What is the total nub of a story? The total effect of a storyis the specific response an author expects to get from his/her readers. In"The Tell-Tale Heart," by Edgar Allen Poe, is complete and total horror.The setting, plot, character and even point of view conduce to thistotal effect of horror.The setting contributes to this total effect in several differentways. All of the shudders in the house were closed, so no one could actualiseanything from the outside in or the inside out. This was scary because noone ever knew what went on in that house except the senescent man with thegoogily core and the murderer. The house was ancient and creaky, and, during themidnight hours, was pitch black. This creaky old house is a classic forhorror stories and films, so it definitely adds to the total effect.The plot also gives that like feeling of horror. The way themurderer watched the old man night after night, for hours at a time. Yougot the total effect of horror when he flippe d the bed onto the old man,and then chopped him into wee tiny pieces and hid him the floorboards.Then the police came to see about a scream that was reported earlier. Theman led them through the house, claiming that the old man was out of townfor a while. He finally sat down in the exact spot where the old man hadbeen buried on a lower floor the floorboards. What eventually made the man confess towhat he had done when he imagined that he heard the old mans heart beatingfrom under the floorboards. It got louder and louder until finally hethought they(the officers)were just driving him insane and they heard theheart to and they must have heard it until he just jumped up, ripped offthe floorboards and said "I did it, I killed him," pointing at the piecesof the man.Characterization is the biggest part of the total effect of horror.The man seemed normal enough, except for the fact that the old mans"vulture eye" made a little crazy. He was very normal, until the "eye "drove him to stalking the man while he was asleep, and then finally killedhim. At the beginning of the story, or the end, whichever you would liketo name it, it was the beginning, and the end, he kept saying "IM NOTMAD," it was sort of, well, a psycho thing to say after chopping someoneinto little pieces and hiding them in the floorboards, that conformation of told