The Tell-Tale Heart
1958
- asesinato
- cuentos de terror estadounidenses
- ficción
- american horror tales
- american literature
- children's fiction
- classic literature
- crime
- crime fiction
- crime in fiction
The story
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer in January 1843. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is often considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and is one of Poe's best known short stories. It is related by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the narrator committed.
What it’s like
Tight, feverish first-person prose that stays close to a single unsettled mind, with the atmosphere of a dark room at night: a lamp shuttered to a single thin beam, the tick of a watch, the steady drum of a heartbeat growing louder until it fills the whole house. Poe's sentences are short and breathless, circling back on themselves in a voice that protests too much, so the reading rhythm is quick, insistent and claustrophobic, over in under an hour. The mood is cold, guilty and mounting dread rather than gore: the crime itself is recounted in a few restrained, sickening lines, and the violence is brief and off the page, with no blood or graphic cruelty. Emotionally it is a study of obsession, paranoia and self-deception, with the narrator's composure cracking under the weight of a sound only he seems to hear. It suits a late, quiet reading alone, a dark autumn evening, or anyone who enjoys the classic Gothic chill and a story that rewards a second reading. Best for readers who want suspense and atmosphere without heavy violence.
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