The Tell – Tale Heart
Edgar Allen Poe
p. 536
Key Words:
Narrator – person telling the story
Irony—what happens is different from what we expect.
Dramatic Irony—we know something that the character
doesn’t.
Mood—the overall feeling you get after reading a story.
Vocabulary: DEFINE (p.536)
acute
vexed
refrained
wary
audacity
vehemently
derision
sagacity
suavity
gesticulations
Quick-Write
Look at the illustrations, captions, heading and title.
What do you predict the story will be about? Use one of
the sentence starters below to begin.
 I expect the story to be about…
 The mood of the story seems…
 I think I will/will not like the story because…
Literary Elements:
Protagonist:
Antagonist:
Point of View:
Setting:
Conflict:
Theme:
Contrast:
As the story is being read, keep track of the narrator’s view of
himself vs. his actual behavior.
Narrator’s view
Actual Behavior
“I’m not mad”
1.
2.
3.
4.
“Nervous”
1.
2.
3.
Check Test: Number 1-5 in your notebook.
1. What bothers the narrator about the old man?
2. How does the narrator kill his victim?
3. Where does the narrator hide his corpse?
4. Why does the neighbor call the police?
5. As the narrator talks to the police, what does he
think he hears?
Order of Events:
____The police seem convinced that nothing unusual
has occurred.
____The actual murder takes place.
____The killer confesses to the murder.
____Three policemen enter the old man’s room.
____The killer greets the old man and asks if he slept
well.
____The killer explains that he didn’t want the old
man’s money.
____The old man wakes in terror in the middle of the
night.
Comprehension Questions:
Answer in notebook.
1. How does the opening paragraph foreshadow, or
hint at, the events of the story?
2. What is the mood of the story? Give some
evidence?
3. What is ironic about the narrator’s insistence that
“you will no longer think him mad” (page 541 –
first column) WHAT DOES HE DO? HOW DOES HE
TAKE IT A STEP FURTHER?
4. The final paragraph of the story builds to a kind of
mad climax. How does the writer use words and
punctuation to create tension?
5. To whom might the narrator be telling this horrible
story?
Discussion Question:
Which of the following quotations provides the best
evidence that the narrator in “ The Tell – Tale Heart” is
insane? Choose the letter that you feel best represents
the narrator’s state of mind. Defend your choice.
A. “Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased…”
B. “It took me an hour to place my whole head
within the opening…”
C. “My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my
ears…”
D. “I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting
and grated it upon the boards…”