the-tell-tale-heart-analysis資料講解

1、 精品文檔the tell-tale heartpublished 1843i about the authoredgar poe was born on january 19, 1809, in boston, massachusetts, the son of indigent actors. at age three,when his parents died, poe was taken in by john allan, a merchant from richmond, virginia. he attended aprivate school in england where h

2、e lived with the allans between 1815 and 1820. after returning toamerica, he continued private schooling until 1826, when he entered the university of virginia. however,he was forced to leave after less than a year because of gambling debts which john allan refused to pay.after quarreling with his g

3、uardian, poe went to boston where, under an assumed name, he joined the army.a few months later, at the age of 18, his first collection of poems, privatelyfinanced, was published. in1829, after the death of john allans wife, poe was discharged from the army. he reconciled with hisguardian, and recei

4、ved an appointment to west point. however, because allen would not support himadequately (and because he did not like military life) he purposely neglected his duties to get himselfdismissed from the academy.poe then went to baltimore, where he resided with his impoverished aunt and her young daught

5、er, virginia.in 1832 he began his career as a writer of bizarre and romantic short stories by publishing metzengerstein,a tale about feuding families and supernatural revenge. however, his first real success came the followingyear when his ms. found in a bottle, an eerie tale about a shipwreck and g

6、hostly seamen, won a $50 prizefrom a baltimore newspaper. more importantly, it won him recognition and led to a position as an editor ona monthly magazine published in richmond.in 1836, poe married his cousin virginia, who was not quite 14 years old at the time, and in 1837, after theend of his edit

7、orship, he and his childbride and her mother moved to philadelphia. poe soon published theonly novel-length fiction he ever wrote, the narrative of arthur gordon paymr a,mbling adventure yarnfilled with mutiny at sea, shipwreck, cannibalism, fierce south sea natives, and a voyage to the south pole.b

8、etween 1838 and 1849, the year he died, poe was at the center of magazine publishing in america,serving as the editor of several journals and writing reviews, critical articles, stories, and miscellaneouspieces which won him admiration for his critical acumen. his most famous works including gothic

9、horrorstories such as the fall of the house of usher and ligeia, detective stories, such as murders in the ruemorgue and the purloined letter, and tales of obsession such as the black cat and the tell-taleheartall were published during this period. he also earned great fame and wide acclaim with poe

10、mssuch as the raven.ii overviewthe tell-tale heart is one of a number of poe stories that focus on an obsessed protagonist/narrator.indeed, what holds the story together and holds the attention of the reader is the single-minded voice of themadman who, even as he denies his madness, tells a story th

11、at confirms it. poes use of a first-personnarrator obsessively recounting a past event is an important element in his contribution to the short storyform as a highly unified aesthetic entity.poes theory that every element in a short prose story should contribute to its overall effect is exemplified精

12、品文檔 精品文檔by the fact that the protagonist/narrator is obsessively concerned with his irrational desire to kill the oldman because of the old mans eye and by his rational method of proceeding. poes stories are oftencharacterized by a psychological mania held in check by the rational control of the nar

13、rative structure ofthe story itself. the narrator insists that his logical plot to kill the old man and the calm way he tells thestory are evidence of his sanity. this reflects poes primary narrative method.iii settingas is usually the case with first-person narratives, there are multiple settings t

14、o the story. the action of therecounted tale takes place in the house the narrator shares with the old man. at the same time, the narratoris telling the story from either a prison or an insane asylum where he has been incarcerated. but even moreimportantly, the setting is actually inside the obsesse

15、d mind of the narrator himself, for the crucial climacticevent of the storyhis hearing the beating of the dead mans hearttake place solely within his owntortured imagination.iv themes and charactersalthough there are two characters involved in the story an old man and the younger man who lives withh

16、imit is really about a single character. an examination of the nature of the narrators obsession showshow poe sets up this story about a split psyche. the narrator insists that he loves the old man, has nopersonal animosity toward him, does not want his money, and has not been injured by him. instea

17、d, he sayshe wishes to kill the old man because of his eye! although there is no way to understand this obsession, thereader must determine the method and meaning of the madness. for poe, there is no such thing asmeaningless madness in fiction.to understand what the old mans eye means to the narrato

18、r, it is necessary to examine the relevance ofother themes and ideas. besides the theme of the eye, there are two primary motifs: the idea of time, andthe identification of the narrator with the old man. the narrator says at various points in the story that heknows what the old man is feeling as he

19、lies alone in bed, for he himself has felt the same things. he saysthe moan the old man makes does not come from pain or grief, but from mortal terror that arises from thebottom of the soul overcharged with awe. many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it haswelled up from my own bo

20、som, deepening with its dreadful echo, the terror that distracted me.the narrators own terror and awe is related to his obsession with time. he associates the central image ofthe beating of the heart with the beating of a clock; he says the old man listens, just as he has done, to thedeath watches (

21、a kind of beetle that makes a ticking sound) in the wall; he emphasizes how time slowsdown and almost stops as he sticks his head into the old mans room. to comprehend the meaning of timefor the narrator, we must consider the significance of the title and ask: what tale does the heart tell?although

22、at the end of the story, the beating heart beneath the floor gives the murderer away, moregenerally, every heart tells the tale of passing timeeach beat bringing one closer to inevitable death.精品文檔 精品文檔the narrators strong identification with the old man and his obsession with the eye, suggests that

23、 thenarrator really wishes to destroy the i, that is, himself. the only way to defeat time is to destroy that whichtime would inevitability destroy, that is, the self. but to save the self by destroying the self is a paradox thatthe narrator cannot overcome. indeed, by destroying the old mans eye, t

24、he narrator indirectly destroyshimself in the end by exposing himself as the murderer.v literary qualitiesthe tell-tale heart, like many of poes stories, is deceptively simple at first reading. one might easilydismiss it as a story about a crazy murderer who kills without motivation. however, this w

25、ouldunderestimate both poes idea of artistic control and his concern with the deepest urges of the human heart.to read the tell-tale heart meaningfully, one must take poes fictional theory seriously and attempt tounderstand the relevance of all the details of the story. this transforms the temporal

26、narrative flow of thestory into a meaningful pattern which makes sense of what at first seems to make no sense.reading the tell-tale heart is like trying to solve a mystery story; in this case, the mystery is themotivation of the killer. the key to motivation in a poe story is his use of a central i

27、dea or effect to hold thestory together. as a result, everything coheres around this effect and radiates from it. the core of the storyis like an obsession that can be identified by the principle of repetition, since those obsessed return againand again to the core of their obsession. thus, the read

28、er must be alert to repetitions in the story, referencesto single-minded motifs or themes. these repeated details are the clues to themystery; repetition is theprinciple by which the reader makes a distinction between relevant and irrelevant details. the tell-taleheart is a classic example of poes m

29、ethod.vi social sensitivitypoe is unconcerned with the broad social issues of his time. his protagonists are, by and large, not socialfigures. instead, they seem to live cut off from society, detached from the large world around them andeither content to, or doomed to, live alone. it may be thatthe

30、short story form itself, which poe is mostcredited with creating in america, is a form that is less suited to dealing with social issues than it is withsolitary people. the novel, which is able to place characters within a realistic external world, is more opento the depiction of social issues than

31、the short story, which usually focuses on one or two charactersconfronting psychological and metaphysical issues.vii topics for discussion1. the narrator insists from the very beginning of the story that he is not insane. what characteristics doeshe say prove his sanity? what characteristics suggest

32、 his madness instead?2. look carefully at the narrators discussion of his motivation for the crime. why does he assure the readerthat he loves the old man and has no reasonable cause to kill him?3. notice how cautiously the narrator sets up the murder of the old man? how does he do this? why does精品文

33、檔 精品文檔he take so long before killing him?4. notice all those places in the story when the narrator identifies with the old man. discuss the nature ofthis identification.5. discuss all the references to time in the story watches, clocks, time passing, etc. why is the narrator soconcerned with time?6.

34、 notice the narrators insistence that what is mistaken for madness is actually an over-acuteness of thesenses. what sense is particularly acute? what relevance does this have in the story?7. when the police call to investigate, why does the narrator invite them in and ask them to stay for a while?wh

35、at does this reveal about his personality?8. if this is not a supernatural story which actually presents the beating of a dead mans heart, then whatmakes the narrator finally confess? explain.viii ideas for reports and papers1. although this is a story of madness, for poe there is no such thing as m

36、eaningless madness. write adiscussion of the nature of madness in the story.2. poe insisted that every detail in a short story should relate to its central effect and thus contribute to aunified story. what unifies this story? what central effect holds it together? how can you tell the differencebet

37、ween those details that are meaningful and those that are not?3. poe is often concerned with the theme of time and mortality, that is, how human beings are trapped intime and thus doomed to death. explain how this story reflects this common poe theme.4. look at other poe stories which focus on an ob

38、sessed, seemingly mad, narrator, such as the black cat,the imp of the perverse, and the cask of amontillado. what characteristics do the narrators in thesestories share?ix related titles and adaptationsthe tell-tale heart is one of a group of poe stories that deal with obsession and madness. the central andmost explicit of these stories is the imp of the perverse (1845), a combination of story and essay in whicha poe narrator discusses and illustrates how humans often persist in some act or behavior for the very factthat they should not. although the story notes suc