The Tell-Tale Heart

E37990

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a classic Gothic short story by Edgar Allan Poe that explores guilt and madness through the unreliable narration of a murderer haunted by the imagined beating of his victim’s heart.


Statements (48)
Predicate Object
instanceOf Gothic fiction work
horror fiction work
short story
adaptedAs animated films
radio dramas
short films
stage plays
antagonistRole old man
author Edgar Allan Poe
collectedIn Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (later editions and collections)
countryOfOrigin United States
firstPublicationDate 1843
firstPublishedIn The Pioneer
genre Gothic fiction
detective precursor
psychological horror
hasWikipediaPage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tell-Tale_Heart
influenced detective and crime fiction traditions
modern psychological horror
language English
literaryDevice foreshadowing
imagery
irony
repetition
symbolism
literaryMovement American Romanticism
mainTheme conscience
guilt
madness
paranoia
the nature of evil
narrativePointOfView first-person narration
narrativeTechnique unreliable narrator
notableMotif beating heart
vulture eye
partOfSchoolCurriculumIn United States
other English-speaking countries
plotElement body hidden under floorboards
confession driven by imagined sound
dismemberment of the body
murder of an old man
visit from police officers
protagonistRole unnamed narrator
setting the old man’s house
settingPeriod 19th century
tone claustrophobic
psychologically intense
tense

Referenced by (3)
Subject (surface form when different) Predicate
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
notableWork
The Tell-Tale Heart ("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tell-Tale_Heart")
hasWikipediaPage

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