The Tell - Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. This story by Poe is a classic tale of horror and a perfect example of Poe's classic horror style. The Tell Tale Heart is a story of total hatred for another person. In this story the narrator is plotting to kill the old man, the old man has no clue what is going to happen and neither does the reader. Every night for 8 nights the narrator observes the old man as he is sleeping. On the eighth night the narrator comes fully inside the room and puts the old man under his bed. Once the old man is dead, the narrator cuts him up and buries him under the floorboard. The police then come and hear a sound. The narrator confesses that he killed and showed the police where his body parts are. The Tell Tale Heart is a typical Poe short story.
As in many of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories there is one main theme. In The Tell Tale Heart the main theme is death. This is the theme most often used in Poe short stories because Poe wants to terrorize the reader. Poe's childhood influences his writing a lot and because Poe's childhood was not like other children he became a mad man in his writing and life. Because Poe grew up around death, it is his most often used theme. Poe had a wrong perception of death because as a young child he watched his mom play Juliet who dies in every play plus his mother died for real. "It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture." This quote from Poe shows the reader how much of a madman he actually was. To make his characters kill someone because of his eye is just another look inside a madman's mind.
Another literary characteristic of Poe is setting.