Thematic Unit: Memories - Short Stories: "The Tell-Tale Heart" Lesson

The Author

Edgar Allan Poe Image Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

The following story is one of Poe's most famous short stories. It is a fantastic example of Poe's ability to mystify the reader. Before reading Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart," let's examine another narrator form - the unreliable narrator.

The Unreliable Narrator

In most narratives, there's an element of trust that the person telling you the story is telling the truth, at least as far as they know it. The unreliable narrator occurs when that convention is discarded. The narrator's facts contradict each other. If you ask them to go back a bit and retell it, the events come out a little differently. A real story is in there somewhere, but you're left to piece it together through all the lies, half-truths, and mistruths.

Reasons for the unreliability vary. Sometimes the narrator is a guilty party and is trying to mislead the audience as well as the other characters. If the narrator is insane, it's through the eyes of madness. If the narrator has honestly misunderstood what's going on due to naivety or inexperience, it's innocently inaccurate.

As an author, this is a difficult trick to pull off. It is a lot easier to tell a straight story than it is to deliberately mislead the audience.

One common technique is to use a framing device, so that the narrator is presented as a character in the frame story, to emphasize that he is not actually the author. Another, even trickier method, is the literary agent hypothesis, where the narrator is supposedly relating things that happened in real life.

The Story

Now, read Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart". As you read, pay attention to the use of the unreliable narrator. A link to this story can be found below. However, you will need to scroll down to find the actual story within this eBook of works by Edgar Allan Poe..

The Tell Tale Heart Text Link

The Tell Tale Heart Audio Link

After reading the Tell Tale Heart, review your understanding by responding to the following True/False questions.

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