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Figurative Language in
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
Figure of Speech
Simile
Definition
Comparison of 2 unlike
things using like or as
Metaphor
Comparison of 2 unlike “Yes, he was stone,
things/when you say
stone dead.”-p.3
something IS something
else
Personification
Giving human traits to
nonhuman things
“Death, in
approaching him had
stalked with his
black shadow before
him, and enveloped
the victim.”-p.2
Dramatic irony
When something
happens in the story
that is more meaningful
to the reader than the
characters, because the
reader KNOWS
something that the
characters do not.
“I brought chairs
What do WE the readers know
into the room, and
that some of the other
desired them here to characters do not?
rest from their
fatigues, while I
myself,…placed my
own seat upon the
very spot beneath
which reposed the
corpse of the victim.”
–p.4
Situational irony When the OPPOSITE of
what we expect to
happen, happens.
Text
Significance and Meaning
“It was the beating of
the old man’s heart.
It increased my fury,
as the beating of a
drum stimulates the
soldier into
courage.” –p.3
Think…
What leads the
narrator to kill?
What leads the
narrator to confess?
How is this situational irony?