Sample Essay on:
Poe’s Use of the Doppelganger in The Tell-Tale Heart

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Essay / Research Paper Abstract

This 5 page paper explains the use of the doppelganger by Edgar Allan Poe in his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Bibliography lists 2 sources.

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5 pages (~225 words per page)

File: KV32_HVdplhrt.rtf

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This paper explores one of his best known short stories, The Tell-Tale Heart and Poes use of the doppelganger motif in this work and argues that in killing the old man, the narrator really wants to kill himself. Discussion Doppelganger is a German word meaning double, and the technique is often found in literature. Perhaps the most famous example of this is found in Joseph Conrads short story The Secret Sharer, in which the narrator and his double are so closely linked it can be argued that the double does not actually exist, but is a figment of the narrators imagination; a device he uses to explore his own psyche. That, in essence, is the use of the doppelganger: it gives the narrator a way to examine himself. The first thing to understand about the narrator of Poes story is that he is what is known as an "unreliable narrator"; he cannot be trusted. Poe uses this device frequently and it works well. In this case, the narrator is insane; his insanity is revealed in the first lines: "TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them" (Poe). He describes himself as "very, very dreadfully nervous" and then asks why anyone would think him mad, which clearly indicates that people have been describing him in this way. Putting the clues together, we have to conclude that he is insane and therefore what he tells us cannot be trusted completely. He then confirms his insanity by detailing the way in which he killed "the old man"; his incessant bragging about his ...