Historical Criticism of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Introduction: Gothic Horror and Historical Context

To understand Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," it is helpful to first understand the historical context within which it appeared. Gothic horror was much in vogue with the popular reading public of the mid-19th century. Poe's short story was published a decade after another story about a madman appeared on the other side of the world — Gogol's "Diary of a Madman," a tale that humorously recorded a Russian man's descent into madness. Such characters were popular on both sides of the world as a result of the immensely influential Romantic movement, which had followed the Age of Enlightenment and given birth to fascinatingly horrific creatures such as Frankenstein's monster.

While literary characters on both sides of the world were failing to present themselves as upright and sane citizens, something must have been happening to promote this change — or to cause this reflection to appear in fiction. The Romantic Age was attempting to answer the big questions about death, religion, and the meaning of life that the old world had addressed through Christianity, but which the modern world had increasingly rejected beginning with the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment. This paper analyzes Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" from the viewpoint of historical criticism and shows how it reflects Poe's own theological and philosophical views concerning death, the soul, and religion.

Poe's Life and Its Reflection in His Fiction

Poe's own life was a sad and unfortunate series of misfortunes that in many ways served as a perfect mirror for his macabre tales. Born in Boston, Poe never ventured far from the East Coast. His own family essentially abandoned him at a young age: his mother died when he was still very young, and his father deserted them. Edgar Poe was then adopted by a family named Allan, from whom he received his added surname and became known as Edgar Allan Poe. Life with the Allans, however, was not always easy, and his adoptive father proved to be at odds with Edgar on several occasions. Nonetheless, from the Allans, Edgar received shelter and support until he was old enough to go out into the world.

He made an attempt at university, but soon left for financial reasons: Mr. Allan had promised Edgar a reasonable allowance, but Edgar squandered much of it in gambling. Next, Edgar attempted to enter the military. He first signed up under a false name, and later entered West Point — but he was never satisfied with the military way of life. He became convinced that the easiest way out was to commit an infraction and allow himself to be court-martialed (Quinn 174). Poe then decided to pursue his love of beauty and truth through fiction and poetry. To be published and to maintain a readership, however, he was compelled to give the public what it wanted — and what the public demanded at this time was a reflection of society's moral decay through the genre of Gothic fiction.

Poe's own life then began to take on, in its own way, the character of one of his stories: his young wife died, and Poe became increasingly isolated. His death came shortly after he was found on the streets in a state that can only be described as one in which the author appeared, like his own characters, to be entirely out of his mind.

Poe's life is, in one sense, reflected in his stories — but his stories are also, in a different sense, reflections of society. The new philosophy of America was being built on rationalism and the virtue of self-reliance. Whether these philosophies were adequate for human needs is a question that may be answered elsewhere, but Poe appears to offer his own assessment through his characters. He addresses these philosophies subtly in his Gothic fiction, seeming to suggest that self-reliance is no real virtue at all — especially when one is on the verge of going mad.

In his own way, then, Poe was advocating a kind of return to grace. The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart," objectively speaking, functions as an attack on the philosophy of self-reliance: the narrator is not even a reliable source of information, let alone a source of sufficient strength to overcome his own defects. Yet he exerts great energy to convince the reader that he is sane, rational, and quite capable. We are asked to ignore the fact that, rather than exercise restraint and self-control, he goes completely mad, murders the old man whose eye he finds oppressive, and then confesses to the police when he finds himself haunted by the mysterious sound of a beating heart — despite having dismembered the old man and buried him beneath the floorboards. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is fundamentally a story concerned with the question of reliability, and even the narrator implores us to believe everything he says, convinced that he possesses the Truth. "True!" is the very first word out of his mouth.

Self-Reliance, Rationalism, and Moral Decay

Robert Spiller, a literary historian, observed that Poe lived in a time when "America was producing more real and alleged transcendental geniuses than maturely wrought poems or stories" (342) — which implies that the wisdom needed to move toward any real semblance of truth or beauty was lacking in America. America was embracing the philosophy of self-reliance because it was an immature, newly formed nation that had divorced itself from the old-world theology. It had no deep Catholic roots — unlike Europe. What Poe does is point out this lack of maturity by depicting the state of the soul, which is, as Kyziridis implies, where the true problem lies.

Conclusion

The narrator is momentarily freed of his belief in his own reliability — which he demonstrates at the end of the tale. However, what comes next is never truly discussed, and Poe himself seems to have had no way of knowing. He never came into meaningful contact with old-world theology and therefore could not articulate in his stories the ways in which grace helps build up the soul and perfect human nature. Instead, Poe was confined to depicting the defect of nature — which was all he could do for a public that simply wanted to understand why it was the way it was. This step is, of course, necessary: before one may admit of a cure, one must first see that one is sick.

Works Cited

Coleridge, Samuel. Notes on Some Other Plays of Shakespeare. Bartleby.com. Web. 28 Nov 2011.

Kyziridis, Theo. "Notes on the History of Schizophrenia." German Journal of Psychiatry, 2005. Web. 28 Nov 2011.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Web. 28 Nov 2011.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. NY: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Print.

Spiller, Robert. Literary History of the United States. NY: MacMillan, 1973. Print.