Title, Symbolism, and Descriptive Language This uncertainty and mystery adds another layer of terror to the story, a fear of uncertainty and of the devolving mental state of the narrator. The reader does not know whether to believe that it is impossible for a dead manвЂ™s heart to continue beating, or whether to trust the narratorвЂ™s passionate insistence that he is sane and that these events truly happened exactly the way that he relates them. It was a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall, a sound I knew well. At the height of the manвЂ™s distress, the reader follows his emotions as they build inside his mind: However, as the story progresses, the reader witnesses the narratorвЂ™s mind unravel as it is wracked with paranoia. One of PoeвЂ™s most masterful uses of first-person narration in a horror story is his unreliable narrator in вЂњThe Tell-Tale Heart.вЂќ At the outset of the story, the paranoid narrator hastens to assure the reader that he is of sound mind and body. It also gives readers an intimate view of the characterвЂ™s psyche and provides an additional layer of realism to PoeвЂ™s stories, allowing the readers to feel more connected to-and therefore more afraid for-the characters. In many of his stories, Poe uses his main character as a first-person narrator to heighten suspense and draw readers into the characterвЂ™s situation. Gothic tales often involve circumstances of mystery and horror, a general atmosphere of gloom and doom, and elements like dungeons, ghosts, and decaying castles with secret passageways. Initially, Poe wrote burlesques of the Gothic story, but soon began to write seriously in the Gothic vein. Gothic TalesДЄlthough Edgar Allan Poe began his literary career as a poet, he quickly recognized the demand for short fiction. His use of psychological horror through first-person narration inspired other writers such as Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Edgar Allan Poe was not the first writer of horror stories, but his literary techniques form the foundation of the immensely popular literary genre as we know it today.

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