The Tell-Tale Heart
Guilt-driven confession story
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843.
The narrator, insisting on his sanity, describes murdering an old man because of the man's pale, vulture-like eye, then concealing the body beneath the floorboards.
During a police visit, the narrator's guilt manifests as the sound of the dead man's heart beating louder and louder until he confesses.
The story exemplifies Poe's Gothic style and exploration of psychological horror.
The title has become shorthand for any guilty conscience that betrays itself: His nervous glances were his tell-tale heart.
- short storyBrief prose fiction
- PoeAmerican gothic writer's surname
- heartbeatRhythmic cardiac contraction
- guiltMoral self-reproach
- madnessMental derangement or folly
Edgar Allan Poe · murder · confession · guilty conscience · floorboards · eye · obsession · paranoia · thriller · gothic · narrator · pulse · thumping · lantern · dead of night · old man · evil eye · suffocation
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- Short StoriesThe Lottery, The Yellow Wallpaper, The Black Cat, Rip Van Winkle, The Queen of Spades
- Gothic LiteratureEdgar Allan Poe, Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights, The Raven
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novel · epic · Moby-Dick · Les Misérables · Don Quixote
tell, tale, heart, telling, teller, hearts, hearted, heartless, hearty