the tell-tale story

Du mener formodentlig "The Tell-Tale Heart" ... her er et par nyttige links, men dog ikke nogen du ikke selv kunne have fundet på Google:
Http://www.bookrags.com/guides/telltaleheart/

http://www.freebooknotes.com/page.php?link=http://www.bookrags.com/notes/poe/PART19.htm&book=1190

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/analysis.html

http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/2800.php

PS, især det sidste link er nok brugbart.




"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Det var en af mine eksamenstekster... Så værsgo:

The Tell-Tale Heart (1842, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49)

Edgar Allan Poe
Born in Boston, Massachusetts. Orphaned in early childhood. We first hear about him as a writer in 1826, while he was studying at the University of Virginia. Married his cousin Virginia, 13 years old. Lifelong drinking and gambling habits. Published new writing every year. In 1849 he was suffering from delusions caused by alcohol.

Style of writing: Treated his material with remarkable freedom. Took his material where he found it, and adopted plots freely. Often describes the development of an inner fear or rage. And often we see the story from one persons point of view.

Horror:
Projection/ Displacement: Denying our own unacceptable feelings by transferring them to the people around us.

Freud (Personality):
Id: the unconsciousness, repression, urges, primary processes (primary urges)
Ego: (before)consciousness, self-image, communicator or interplayer between the id and the superego and the surroundings
Superego: consciousness, conscience, attitudes, ideals, moral standards

Setting:
The main character tells about an event that has happened some time ago. The story runs for 8 days. He lives in the same house with an old man and tells about his nightly visit in the old mans room.

Resume:
The main character feels that he is hunted by the old mans evil eye and therefore he spy on him in seven nights before he finally kills him. He cuts the body into pieces and hides him under the floor but he exposes his crime because of his paranoia.

Characterization of the main character:
All the time he is telling the story he tries to convince the reader that he isn’t insane, but he tells us that he’s dreadfully nervous. That is an indication of the fact that he has a bad conscience. Ex: (”I heard many things in Hell” P. 20, 4-5). During the story he turns out to be very cunning and he also tells us that he is (p.20 l. 27). He is also very patient and have no moral feelings (“I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done” p.23 l.8). In the end we get an insight in his paranoid mind: (”They suspected! - they knew – they were making a mockery of my horror” P. 24, 31).

Analysis:
The most probable reading is that the event doesn’t really take place. It all takes place in his mind.
There are also more indications of the fact that they are the same person: They are both afraid at night and they both suffer of mortal terror from the bottom of the soul (p. 21 l. 30). At the same time he pity the old man – he pity him self. He also likes himself in general he, but the only thing he doesn’t like is the evil eye. (”I loved the old man” P. 20, 10)

Freud:
The evil eye represents his inner fear and rage, and his unconscious urges. He is afraid of it but at the same time it draws him. (He watches it seven night and tries to highlight it with a thin ray of light from the lantern). When he succeed in this he sees his own dark sides, but he wishes them to disappear (planning the killing). The hinges on the door leading to the old mans room creaks when he opens it, symbolic reading: The canal to his id is unused and therefore he doesn’t have a connection to his unconsciousness, meaning that he it unable to understand his inner fear.
The house can be seen as a symbol of the main character’s identity. Then the old man’s room is the id, where he tries to face his inner fear/urges in shape of the evil eye.
Through the story we see the development of an inner fear and rage that gets to it’s climax with the killing. The killing means that he suppresses his primary urges or fear and when he hides the body under the floor he keeps them in the most deep secret place in his id. But he doesn’t succeed in hiding it because the old man’s heart haunts him and finally brakes up to the surface. During the story he sometimes hear the old man’s heart ticking. And if we compare to actions in the story – it tics louder when the “evil Eye” is about to brake the surface.

Suspension line:
We have the same line as in most stories with a point of no return (the killing), but there are two climaxes.
The ticking of the heart also follows the suspension line in the story – the heart is ticking loudest just before the killing and just before his unveiling. In that way we can say that the beating of the old man’s heart is the pulse in the story. At the same time it can also be his own pulse when we se them as one person.

Themes: Suppression of inner urges, sanity (when we are insane or not) – He claims that he isn’t mad because he is able to act with rationality.

Perspective: “The man who loved flowers” and the “Boogey Man”.

Both are horror stories, and we can also use Freud in the analysis. Suppression of the id.

Kalle

tak for hjælpen,men er dog ikke helt sikker på hvad du mener i din analyse, hvor du inddrager freud.

Det er også analyse på et meget højt plan (-;