"Tell Tale Heart" COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS ( KRISHA)
Give one example where the author uses punctuation or repeated words or phrase in a sentence to show the mood of phrase in a sentence to show the mood of horror or suspense?
"Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly-- very very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep.
What does the narrator tell us he does every night? Why?
Every night the narrator goes into the old man's room and shines a small ray of light on his eye to seem if it was open.He did this because he didn't hate the man so he couldn't kill him unless he was awake and he saw the eye.
How does the narrator feel immediately after he commits the murder? Do his feeling change? If so, how and why?
He is at first confident about it and feels he has hidden his crime incredibly well, even when the police come he welcomes them in and chats with them in the room.Eventually however, he feels that the police are being sarcastic and he hears the old man's beating heart! At this point he losses confidence and admits the truth.
Who is telling this story (narrating)? Is if first, second, or third person point of view?
Tell Tale Heart the murderer is told in a first person point of view.
What is your first impression of the narrator? what does he try convincing the reader of?
The Tell Tale Heart narrator wants, first of all to convince the reader that he is not insane. He insane. He says that he is nervous, not "mad". He implies that his ability to hear well, along with the extra acuteness of his other sense, is a sign of sanity, not insanity.
Give two direct and specific examples from the story that the author uses to create an atmosphere of horror or suspense. These are sentences that set or enhance the MOOD of the story.
The feeling is very similar to the tone.It is nervous, shocking and horrifying. "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." "All that we see or seem is but a dreams within a dream". "Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning".
What should drives the narrator to confess to the crime? What do you think cause hit paranoia?
The incessant beating of the heart caused the narrator to confess this crime.His paranoia is caused by his guilt and fear of being found out or giving himself away.
How does the narrator feel about the old man in general?What, then, specifically, is it about the old man that troubles? bothers the narrator? Why? How often does the narrator mention this "thing" in the story?
The narrator is pretty unstable.Really, he has no problem with the old man, " Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me." His specific problem was with the old man's eye which was probably nothing abhorrent in the first place.