“It is the beating of his hideous heart!” says Edgar Allen
Poe’s ‘insane’ narrator.
Wait. Narrator? What kind of story has a narrator the reader
can’t depend upon to tell them the truth?An ingenious one is the simple
answer. The longer answer is that one of Poe’s great talents was surprising his
reader, letting the truly horrific details of the story unfold, page by page,
until the reader realizes that yes, the nagging suspicions they had, the unbelievable
reality they suspected actually happened.
In Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, a horror story almost all eighth
grade English books contain in order to grab the attention of even the most lagging
and reluctant readers, the narration is in a rare second person point of view which
draws the reader in, despite themselves.
The narrator begins by addressing his audience and asking why they say
that he is mad when clearly he is not. Instantly the reader wants to know why
the narrator has been accused of being insane, and why the more he protests,
the more the reader realizes he is indeed raving mad.
Two of the most frequently asked questions many authors get asked
is who inspired us to write, and how do we get ideas for our writing. While I
read many, many different authors growing up, one of my favorite books was the complete
works of Edgar Allen Poe. What kid didn’t love to watch Saturday fright
matinees on TV staring Vincent Price bringing classics like The Pit and the
Pendulum to life?
The unusual way in which he masterfully manipulated his
reader’s response, how he anticipated their reaction and was thus able to deploy
the pace and flow of his stories with twists and turns and breathtaking
surprises still fascinates me.
There are reasons that classic tales become just that, and
the intriguing use of point of view in Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart is just one of the
many reasons he’s still one of my all time favorite authors. If it’s been a
while, you may want to revisit some of those classic tales.
What stories inspire you?
3 comments:
Great post! As a writer I find inspiration everywhere, but especially when I read a favorite author. It inspires me to improve my craft.
Poe always creeps me out. I'm not a fan of horror. In fact, I'll go out of my way to avoid being scared by a story, book, roller coaster. But Poe has always stuck in my brain. Terrific post, Elizabeth.
Sometimes the weirdest things inspire a story in me. One I haven't used yet is a VW Bug car painted with stars. Looked like outer space on wheels. :)
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