Friday, November 5, 2010

Gothic Fishbowl #2: "The Tell-Tale Heart"


Fantastic job last time, outer circle. Bravo!


Keep bringing in quotations, asking wonderful questions, and showing how your mind was working as you read this bizarre but classic Poe tale.


Enjoy!

52 comments:

  1. Was there really a heart beat at all?

    ReplyDelete
  2. What are some lessons learned in this story?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Everyone:

    Was the eys suppose to play the character of the old man?

    ReplyDelete
  4. What about the old mans eye made him kill the old man?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Is the main character crazy?

    ReplyDelete
  6. How do we know that crazy people are acutely sane and we are in truth insane.

    ReplyDelete
  7. He is very paranoid because of the fact that he keeps trying to say hes not crazy over and over.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Emily

    I dont think the heart beat was there at all...But like the inner circle said it was his paranoia about what he did.

    ReplyDelete
  9. to answer emilys question i believe the heart in his head rather than the persons he killed his actual heart.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Does the repression of the guilt and knowledge of what he did make him crazy?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The heart beating, or what he thought was the heart beating, is what pushed him to confess his guilt. But what exactly is making that sound? Is his head making that noise to force him to feel guilt?

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I think the heart beating was his own heart and the sound was magnified by his guilt and his craziness, and that made him think it was the dead guy

    ReplyDelete
  14. Cortez I think that it did make him go crazy and lose all that calm an collected nature of earlier in the story

    ReplyDelete
  15. Is it a possibility that the whole story is a made up delusion of the author?

    ReplyDelete
  16. to cortez-
    you are probably right,I think that his repression of guilt is what made him crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  17. the eye could be a paranoia of the narrator. since he is a little mad, it would be something that simply annoyed him. it kept getting worse and worse till he could stand it no longer. Maybe that is himself that he wants to destroy, the "I".

    ReplyDelete
  18. earl. do you think that he was crazy before he killed the old man or just after?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Okay, just thought of this: Wouldn't it be insane if he was just a guy in an insane asylum having delusions? Like, the police officers are actually people working in the asylum where he is, the old man is a doctor... I dunno, something crazy like that.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Can the narrator see himself in the old mans eye?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Origianly i had the question of how the narrator is related to the Old Man. If the "eye" is acutally "I" then what part of him does the old man represent?

    ReplyDelete
  22. I think he was crazy all the time cause it wouldnt be just random that he would want to kill the guy

    ReplyDelete
  23. Is the eye vs. the man, in a way, a fight of good vs. evil.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Was the old man a depiction of his future self?

    ReplyDelete
  25. Is the narator blind in his eye and could that be symbolic for something?

    ReplyDelete
  26. I like the connection to noah because both killed without real logical reasons

    ReplyDelete
  27. I think that your right, that the old man is what he man is afraid to become

    ReplyDelete
  28. Trent remember the story we read about the two people who just randomly wanted to kill people after watching the movie.... it could be kind of like that. He doesn't necessarily mean he was crazy

    ReplyDelete
  29. Tyler, I think that he had the capability to think clearly like he was insane but it didn't really show, like there was still some control over his thoughts and thinking about how he could get out of it but as things progressed that veil that shrouded the true insanity of the narator was lifted

    ReplyDelete
  30. Emily-
    Pehaps the old man symbolizes what the narrator doesn't want to be. growing old or being blind...

    ReplyDelete
  31. I think that edgar allen poe was very disturbed

    ReplyDelete
  32. I think Nate that you might just be right

    ReplyDelete
  33. Davis, that is a very interesting interpretation of the story, that the old man is just a depiction of his future self. i think that it could be that he is so scared of being old that he "kills the old him." But i think that it would make more sense that the man is actually old and he has convinced himself that the old man is evil and he is actually someone else.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Some people are naturally sick and twisted which is kind of like being crazy making them want to kill people

    ReplyDelete
  35. conner- yea that is true I guess there could be something there even in the unconscious that caused to repress all his normal feelings and go crazy to kill the man.

    ReplyDelete
  36. one question i had about the story is how he killed the old man?

    ReplyDelete
  37. if this man is really insane how does he have the ability to come up with such a specific plan and be so patient in waiting to kill him?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Why would the Poe watch the old man at night while he slept?

    ReplyDelete
  39. I like what Emily said. If a person is truly crazy can they really think logically enough to come up with a plan to kill and hide a man and the evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I think this story is so popular because it is so twisted that it creates intrigue

    ReplyDelete
  41. extending this out do you think all "crazy" know their are crazy or is it like in the tell tale heart and he thinks he's completely normal?

    ReplyDelete
  42. If this guy is really just a man in a mental institution and he comes up with this idea that he murdered somebody then does that mean that mental institutions are likely to make people more mad than they were before they were admitted?

    ReplyDelete
  43. Poe might have been disturbed but he writes really well. he is a famous writer and he has a very interesting form of writing.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Cortez, i agree he must have some sense to b e able to come up with that elaborate of aplan.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Earl

    I think that people who are "crazy" think they are normal and that the rest of us are the ones who are "crazy"

    ReplyDelete
  46. Earl, i think that crazy people probably believe that their normal and were crazy. How do we know that we the normal people are actually not the crazy people.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Emily- I think the heart beat was a symbol of the guilt and need to tell the truth throbbing inside of him and wanting to be exposed.

    ReplyDelete
  48. I agree with connor that this coiuld have been set off by soomething else, something we don't know of

    ReplyDelete
  49. I am questioning wether there was a heartbeat. I don't think there was really one because the man seemed like he was the only one who could hear it. I agree with Dan when he said; "He is very paranoid because of the fact that he keeps trying to say hes not crazy over and over." I wonder what the old man's eye symbolized. Did it symbolize how some people are ignorant to others actions? I agree with Marie and Cortez when they said that people who are crazy think that they are normal and that the rest of us are crazy. I an questioning what the ray of light, and what him sitting on top of the floorboards symbolized. :)

    ReplyDelete
  50. Going to what the outer circle said do you think they meant eye or I. If you had only read the first paragraph what would you think the narrator was talking about when he talked about the disease. To answer emily k i think that a mental institution tends to make the crazy people more crazy because they are confined to themselves and their thoughts and they arent able to talk to anyone normal.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Did the police men really know the heart was beating, it seemed to me like they did not but Poe was convinced they could. I thought it was intresting that he killed the old man becasue the way his eyes meet the old man with the coldness in them.

    ReplyDelete
  52. In response to a question posted earlier, I think that the narrator watched the old man at night for a week because he was really watching himself. I think he was staring into what his future could be and who he would become. I think he was intrigued in a way by the man and not frightened. Frequently it seems that when a murder occurs, its a result of fear. But this case i think was envy. I think he wanted to kill the man to defeat him, there for in a way defeating his future self.

    ReplyDelete