Analysis of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe When creating the famous short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, he uses several different elements to weave for us, the reader, an exciting page. He uses the setting elements, the tone in which he writes, the point of view, and even the characterization to create this chilling suspense story. For my part, I believe that the main theme of this short story is guilt which is monstrous and which consumes almost everything to the point of driving a person to complete madness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay If we take apart a few of the key parts of the story, we can see how these elements interact with each other to bring together our main they consume guilt. We enter the story with a seemingly mad man who hits the reader with a barrage of questions about being mad (Charters, 1127); he seems to be in a sort of adrenaline rush almost to this point that piques readers' interest and compels us to keep reading. Our narrator continues the story by telling us that the old man's eye is like a vulture trying to consume him and that he must kill the eye (Charters, 1128); notice that it is not the old man our narrator wishes to die, but simply this horrible haunting eye. Our narrator then plotted the old man's death for days, waiting and waiting until he finally succeeded in killing the old man by choking him to death. The narrator's immediate emotion was relief that the vulture's eye no longer bothered him. I think it is during this next stage of the process that the immediate guilt begins to set in as our author dismembers the old man's body to hide it in order to hide his guilt for killing the man (Charters, 1129). The police overhear the screams and are initially convinced that the narrator was not guilty of any wrongdoing; however, our narrator is ultimately consumed with guilt as he hears the repeated heartbeats grow louder and louder, driving him mad enough to finally confess to the entire crime of killing and dismembering the old man (Charters, 1130). I think the overall message or theme that Mr. Edgar Allan Poe is trying to get across in this story is that ultimately, the truth always comes out eventually, so it's best to just spare yourself the madness and guilt ; Just admit when you did something by mistake.