Study Guide
to
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"
Plan on reading the story three times before you undertake to write on it. 

Your first reading:  letting the story show itself.

Devote your first reading just to finding out what happens.  But as you do this, be asking yourself what you find yourself feeling as you discover what transpires.  Many of you have already read this story.  But some of you haven't, and you should not deprive yourself of the pleasure of getting oriented to the basic situation, and (perhaps) of being surprised by events.

It will be clear at the outset that we are dealing here with a "first-person" narrator:  that is, the story is told to us by a one of the characters in the story, and in this case, by the central agent himself, the protagonist.  This means that even during your first reading it makes sense to adopt the general agenda of curiosity that is called for whenever we are confronted with first-person narration.

Do not read further in this Study Guide until you have completed your first reading.

Your second reading:  reflecting on how our attention is shaped by the story.

Let the story sit a while before embarking on a second reading. And before reading further in this memo, jot down a couple or three points that you found mysterious about the explicit events you've been taken through in your initial reading.

Before undertaking your second reading, let's recall certain features of the story that we were aware of in the course of our initial acquaintance with it. Keep handy your earlier jottings concerning your puzzlements, and see if some of them don't turn up in these observations:

(1)  The narrator is a murderer who tells us why and how he did the deed.  He is not guilty or apologetic.  Nor is this his initial confession.

(2)  But where are we to imagine the narrator as situated?  And to whom is he talking?  That is, what is the role in which Poe casts the reader of the story?  Where are we to imagine ourselves as being situated, as we are being addressed by this speaker?

(3)  What does the narrator want from us?  In this case, it is clear that he is desperate to get us to acknowledge him as sane.  What are the main arguments that he appeals to in order to convince us that he is not mad?

(4)  How are we to evaluate these arguments?  For any argument to be sound, two conditions have to hold. 

First, the argument must be formally proper. 

In the case of deductive arguments, this means that the argument must be such that, if its premises are true, its conclusions must be true. 

In the case of inductive arguments, it means that the argument must be such that, if its premises are true, then its conclusion must be highly likely or probable. 

Secondly, the premises must in fact be true. 

These two conditions together mean that, if we have an argument with a conclusion that we must (on some other grounds) hold to be false, then

either at least one premise must be false

or,

if the argument is deductive, the argument's form must be invalid, or

if the argument is inductive, then

either the argument's form is not reliable

or we are confronted with a rare instance, an special exception to the rule.

In this case, we are convinced that the narrator is mad.  Hence two additional questions come to the fore:

(a) What exactly are the grounds on which we are sure the narrator is mad?

(b) What exactly do we locate as the flaws in his arguments to convince us that he is sane?

If his arguments are deductive (are they?) and if as deductive arguments they are formally valid (are they?), then we are driven to reject one or more of his premises.

Can you locate the premises of each of his arguments on behalf of his sanity?

Can you explain exactly it is about the premises you reject that makes them false?

(5) Why is the narrator so desperate to convince us of his sanity? 

(6) Do you see any connection between the assumptions behind this urgency and the traits of character that led him to commit the murder in he first place?

Devote your second reading to reaching clarity on these issues.

Do not read further in this Study Guide until you have completed your second reading.

Your third reading: 

Let's use this reading to do two main things:

First, let's press further in tracing out the implications of the agenda of curiosity you've been pressing in reflecting on after your second reading (i.e., the questions just formulated):

Psychologists use the term "projection" to refer to the attribution to other people and/or to objects of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes, and in particular to the externalizations of blame, guilt, or responsibility for one's thoughts or actions as an unconscious mechanism to defend the ego against anxiety.  Delusions of persecution or of grandeur are often understood as based on such projection.

[For clarification of some of the notions just traversed, you might eventually find it useful to dip into our online glossary article on the concept of psychological repression.]

Do you see any indications that the speaker of Poe's story may be a victim of unconscious projection?  (If so, what is he projecting upon what?  And how does this serve to "defend his ego," and against what anxiety?)

Secondly, let's focus on the structure of the narrative.  What do you locate as

What do you notice about how Poe has arranged these elements to throw into relief some of the key facts that we found ourselves focusing on in pursuing our inquiries into the character of the protagonist?

 When you have finished your third reading, go to the Writing Assignment on this story.

  Suggestions are welcome.  Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .

   Contents copyright © 1999 by Lyman A. Baker. 

Permission is granted for non-commercial educational use; all other rights reserved.

  This page last updated 18 September 2003.