Running head: CRITICAL RESPONSE ESSAY 1
CRITICAL RESPONSE ESSAY 4
Taylor Hauschild
Critical Response Essay #1
EN303
September 29, 2014
Critical Response Essay
The short story that I have chosen to do my critical response essay on is "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. The main reason I chose this story is because I am an Edgar Allen Poe fan but for some reason have not ever gotten around to reading this story. I find a lot of his work eerie, especially this story. I find stories like this to be very suspenseful which makes you want to keep reading to find out what happens next. This paper will discuss the various elements of a "The Tell-Tale Heart" that help you better understand the literature.
In the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" the central conflict is man versus self. The main character of the story possesses great internal conflict and drives the story with his struggle.
He is struggling with himself because his mind is bringing the dead man back to life, through the beating of the heart. This conflict is greatest when the policemen come to the house in the middle of the night. The narrator begins to hear the beating heart of the old man, which causes him to become extremely nervous and anxious. The heart beat slowly gets louder and louder to the point where he can't take it any more. The narrator cracks and screams to the police that he killed the old man.
The conflict of the story affects many of the elements within it. First, the conflict impacts the plot in a couple different ways. Because this man in is struggling with himself, he finds a reason to struggle with the old man. In the beginning of...