“Tell Tale Heart” Study Guide
1. What is the narrator saying at the opening of the story?
2. What bothers the narrator about the old man?
3. What happens when the narrator enters the old man’s room on the eighth night?
4. Why do the police come to the house?
5. How do the police respond to the narrator?
6. Why does the narrator confess to the police?
7. What evidence is there that the narrator is insane?
8. At the end of the story what does the narrator believe is happening?
After Reading
9. What details are there that reveals how unreliable the narrator is?
10. What does the heartbeat symbolize?
11. Give me an example of verbal irony from the story.
12. Give me an example of situational irony from the story.
13. Give me an example of dramatic irony from the story.
14. Give me an example of personification from the story.
15. Give me either an example of a simile or metaphor from the story.
Vocabulary
16. Acute:
Syn:
Ant:
17. Vexed:
Syn:
Ant:
18. Refrained:
Syn:
Ant:
19. Wary:
Syn:
Ant:
20. Audacity:
Syn:
Ant: