During the time of the Romantic Movement, Gothic romance was introduced.
Using the Romantics" ideal of individualism, gothic romantics wrote about the hysterical, mystical, passionate adventures of terrified heroes in the clutches of frightening, mysterious forces. Unlike the Romantics, the Gothic Romantics acknowledged the evil of man and the horror of evil. However, like Romantics, Gothic Romantics valued intuition and emotion over logic and reason and saw symbols, spiritual truths, and signs in nature. Characteristics used in gothic romance are melancholy, gloom, psychological components, elements of the supernatural, and dark spaces. The elements in Edgar Allan Poe's literature lead to the peak of Gothic romance during the Romantic Movement portrayed through "The Tell Tale Heart", "The Raven," and "The Fall of the House of Usher.".
"The Tell Tale Heart" suggests that elements in Poe's literature lead to Gothic Romance during the era of American Romanticism. This short story is about a mad individual and his motivation to kill an old man. Elements of this short story were apart from that of romanticism of which began the gothic tradition in romance. Poe sets up this short story in an eerie setting; the majority of the settings were set during "every night at midnight." The narrator would "turn the latch of his [the old man's] door as he lay upon his bed." The idea that the narrator stands outside a door during the night for hours creates a very eerie and gloomy setting for the audience; it also gives the audience the feeling of dark open spaces and being alone in the setting. The story has many psychological components. "The Tell Tale Heart," is being told from the killer's point of view so the audience can see his psychological thinking. The audience reads about how the murderer is trying to convince them that he is not mad by presenting his orderly killing style as evidence, which makes him seem even more insane; this is where the horror of the story is derived from.