The Tell Tale Heart Figurative Language
Can fear actually be beneficial to us? It may be able to alert us to harm. It is a survival instinct after all. For example, if you were lost in a sketchy neighborhood you knew nothing about, fear could prevent you from walking down a dark alley. On the other hand, fear can cause us to get carried away until we develop more serious afflictions, such as paranoia or obsessions, causing us to make quick decisions that aren’t well thought out. Poe illustrates this dilemma in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Masque of Red Death,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Poe uses symbolism, irony, and figurative language to show how paranoia affects the characters’ train of thought, and its consequences. Poe demonstrates the downside of fear through his use
…show more content…
The ramification of fear are exhibited in “The Tell-Tale Heart” through the old man’s fear of robbers: “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers)” (75). The old man is so scared that people will break into his house to rob him, he locks himself in. This is of no use though, for the real danger is within. His paranoia of the outside drew his attention away from the other possibility, that harm could already be lurking in his home. If you let your fear of something totally occupy your attention, you ignore the prospect that the thing that terrifies you can be where you least expect it. Like the old man, Prince Prospero also isolates himself from the outside: ¨The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave no means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden of despair or of frenzy from within”(57). The prince is so dogged on evading death he decides to destroy any way of entering or leaving his castle, certain it would be enough to halt the Red Death. His worst fear becomes reality though, as he effectively creates his own prison, trapping himself in his castle with the Red Death. His terror misled him into thinking he could lock out death, when he really just locked himself in with it. Fear can make you think you can hide from death, but in reality being behind closed doors can be just as precarious as being out in the
The ramification of fear are exhibited in “The Tell-Tale Heart” through the old man’s fear of robbers: “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers)” (75). The old man is so scared that people will break into his house to rob him, he locks himself in. This is of no use though, for the real danger is within. His paranoia of the outside drew his attention away from the other possibility, that harm could already be lurking in his home. If you let your fear of something totally occupy your attention, you ignore the prospect that the thing that terrifies you can be where you least expect it. Like the old man, Prince Prospero also isolates himself from the outside: ¨The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave no means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden of despair or of frenzy from within”(57). The prince is so dogged on evading death he decides to destroy any way of entering or leaving his castle, certain it would be enough to halt the Red Death. His worst fear becomes reality though, as he effectively creates his own prison, trapping himself in his castle with the Red Death. His terror misled him into thinking he could lock out death, when he really just locked himself in with it. Fear can make you think you can hide from death, but in reality being behind closed doors can be just as precarious as being out in the