first person perspective of poe
... this technique, the readers achieve a better understanding for the reasoning behind the choices the character makes. Furthermore, the narrator is able to bluntly tell the audience what the motive behind the killing was. For example, in the Tell Tale Heart, the narrator tells the audience why he had to kill the old man. He says, “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!... whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold… I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (1). This passage allows the reader an insight into the mind of the character. They see how much the eye of the old man bothers the narrator. Now the audience can sense that the narrator may be disturbed simply because he stresses how much he hates the eye and that it is the sole reason he wants to kill the old man. If this were written in the third person perspective it would be hard for the reader to believe that someone would kill another human being just because of a physical characteristic. Thus, it is very essential to intensify the story’s dramatic impact that it be written in first person. In Poe’s work one can find that he favors using foreshadowing to create a stronger effect of shock. It also helps the reader to see inside the evil side of the human mind. In “Tell Tale Heart” the loud pounding heart signifies something dramatic is going to happen. The narrator tells the reader how he is effected by the sound “the beating grew louder, louder!... the old man’s time had come!” (4). The beating of the heart made him very nervous, he knew that he had to do something to make it stop, so he killed the man. This foreshadows that whenever the heart is heard something dramatic will happen. “It grew louder- louder-louder!” (6). The pounding heart is heard again at the end of the tale. The readers understand that when the sound was heard before something dramatic occurred, so something must have to happen now. In this case, the narrator breaks down and tells the police that he indeed was the o...