Thursday, January 28, 2016

How is sound used to create atmosphere and suspense in "The Tell-Tale Heart?"best answer needed written in p.q.a(point, quote, analysis)

The narrator opens the old man's door "cautiously--oh so cautiously..." to keep it from creaking, an unnerving sound of itself.  But, the eerieest of sounds is the old man's "groan of mortal terror"; he knows in advance that the narrator plans to kill him.  Describing this groan as not of grief or pain, the narrator says,  I

It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well...It has welled up from my own bosom, deepening with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me.

His echoings of this terror create suspense; How can the narrator feel a similar terror?  Is he horrorified by what is in his own mind?

Later, in the narrator's increased sensitivity,much like that of Roderick Usher in "The House of Usher,"the narrator hears "a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton."  This is the sound of the old man's heart, the narrator explains. As this sound "grows louder" to the narrator, he expresses that he is excited to "uncontrollable terror."  In a bizarre state of mind, the narrator fears that a neighbor will hear this sound,so, shrieking in madness, he rushes into the room and kills the old man.

After the police officers arrive, he fancies "a ringing in my ears," the sound of a watch again.  This must be his conscience. Now he cannot silence it with murder,so he confesses.

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