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Smarthinking Tutor Response Form

Your tutor has written overview comments about your essay in the form below. Your tutor has also embedded comments [in bold and in brackets] within your essay. Thank you for choosing Smarthinking to help you improve your writing!

Hello, Negar! I’m Isbel F., and I look forward to working with you on this Essay Center Review to improve your writing today. Let's get started!

*Writing Strength:  Your introduction ends with your thesis statement. There, you say this:

Edgar Allan Poe uses the narration in the story to show the effects of a guilty conscience on a person. Guild drove the narrator mad, made him get caught, and left him with a heavy burden.

This tells your readers that you will be discussing the narration and the guilt in the story, so they know what to expect as they read your work. Good job, Negar!

*Negar 11792784, you requested help with Content Development:    You need to demonstrate in each paragraph how Poe uses the narration in the story to show the effects of guilt, Negar. For example, in your first body paragraph, you mostly narrate the events that happen in the story. Because you’re talking about the narration in your thesis (rather than the events), it might strengthen your claim if you present evidence—passages from the story—to substantiate your claim that Poe uses narration in “The Tell-Tale Heart” to show the effects of guilt.

Now, for instance, you say this in your first body paragraph:

He claims only to be anxious and nervous, but through the tale we can indeed that he is crazy.

Here, one may ask, what are the passages that show the narrator claiming that he’s anxious and nervous? What passages tell readers that the narrator is crazy? How do you think Poe uses narration (perhaps the language, his word choice, the unreliability of the narrator, etc.) in this section to show that guilt has driven the narrator mad?

*Negar 11792784, you requested help with Organization:    You can also consider explaining the quoted passages that you present further. For example, you say this in your third body paragraph:

“[…] I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased.” His guilt could not let him be at peace anymore.

You can explain why you think that, through this passage, “[h]is guilt could not let him be at peace anymore,” and to also support your thesis, you can explain this passage in detail to show how Poe uses narration that guilt leads the narrator to have “a heavy burden that he couldn’t live with.”

Now, what is it about this section that tells you that guilt won’t let him be at peace? What part of the story is this? How do you think this shows that guilt is symbolized by the increasing noise? How does Poe use this passage to show an effect of guilt?

Grammar & Mechanics  Your draft contains sentences where you use the past tense to discuss events and details from the story. Here’s an example from your second body paragraph:

Moreover, the sharp noise in his head caused him too much unrest that he felt that he must confess to his great crime.

The verbs used in this sentence are in the present tense. When we discuss events and characters from fictional works, such as Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” we always use the literary present tense. We assume that these fictional events happen in the present, not in the past, because fictional works transcend time. To help you revise your sentences, take a look at this sentence that talks about a fictional work:

The protagonist’s homesickness leads her to find places that remind her of her home, and this is how she finds the diner.

The verbs used in this sentence are in the literary present tense. For more information about writing about literary works, you can visit the Writer’s Handbook lesson on Writing Literary Analyses and Explications .

Summary of Next Steps: 

· Present evidence that Poe uses narration to show the effects of guilt in each body paragraph.  

· Explain some of the quoted passages further.  

· Consistently use the literary present tense.

Thank you for submitting your essay for a review, Negar. I enjoyed helping you with this step in the revision process. Have a good day! ~Isbel F.

You can find more information about writing, grammar, and usage in the Smarthinking Writer's Handbook.

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Please look for comments [in bold and in brackets] in your essay below. Thank you for submitting your work to Smarthinking! We hope to see you again soon.

Negar Tabrizi

Professor: Ashley Paul

LIT-203-WB1

The Effects of a Guilty Conscience in “The Tell-Tale Heart”

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story on a murder committed by the narrator on his master. The narrator is an insane person who narrates on how he managed to kill his master, an old man, and how eventually got caught. He is filled with paranoia and anxiousness which makes him unreliable. In the narration, we find out that the narrator is the one who got himself captured. He had managed to cover all his tracks and had even convinced the police that nothing was wrong. However, he believed they may have noticed and a disturbing sound kept ringing in his mind made him tell them about his crime. Edgar Allan Poe uses the narration in the story to show the effects of a guilty conscience on a person. Guild drove the narrator mad, made him get caught, and left him with a heavy burden. [<- Guild seems miswritten. What noun are you meant to use here?]

A guilty conscience has the power to do many things on a person’s mind, and to the narrator, it drove him mad. In the beginning of the story, the narrator confirms this status by showing that the people that he is with think that he is mad. He claims only to be anxious and nervous, but through the tale we can indeed that he is crazy. His craziness, however, can be credited to his guilty conscience. The onslaught of his madness only came after he had killed the old man. It was then that he started hearing a sharp noise, and feeling anxious. The narrator had no problem killing his master, but after killing him, it is when he started questioning himself. He even refers to the old man as a good person. This shows how guilt, even in our normal lives can stick to our conscience. The ringing sound in his head could be the striking questions we ask ourselves when we feel like we have wronged someone.

A guilty conscience is also what made the narrator to get caught. He had cleverly hidden all indicators to his murder. His alibi checked out and when the police came to his home, he was able to convince them that his master had travelled. However, unprovoked, he confesses to the murder of his master. This is because all was in his mind was that the police already knew and they were just mocking him before they could make an arrest. [<- What is the passage that tells us this? How does this show how Poe uses the narration to show an effect of guilt?] Moreover, the sharp noise in his head caused him too much unrest that he felt that he must confess to his great crime. It is as if he literally wanted to be caught hoping it would help him escape the torture of the ‘noises in his head,’ presumably guilt. The guilt drove him to a corner to confess.

Guilt gave the narrator a heavy burden that he couldn’t live with. The burden of his guilt was too strong that he didn’t even make it through the night before it took his toll. From his point of narration, it is evident that even after his capture he has a burden on his soul. “[…] very dreadfully nervous I had been and am.” The narrator’s conscience is in a bad place and he even questions his intention for murder. Even though he felt peaceful after killing his master and cleaning up every spot of evidence, after a while he felt uneasy. “[…] I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased.” His guilt could not let him be at peace anymore.

The narrator, felt that it was absolutely necessary that he killed the old man. He was enraged by his “vulture eyes.” He was very disgusted by the gaze the old man gave him. It seems that the gaze that the boss gave him made him fearful of the boss. In his conscience at that moment, he had to kill his boss. He reveals that he loved the old man; having never been insulted by him, been wronged by him and he did not have any desire for his gold. He only wanted to get rid of the old man’s blue-like vulture gaze.

Once he had made up his mind, he felt like there was no turning back. He made a plan on how he would secretly kill the old man and cover his tracks. He was very cautions and stealthy in executing his whole plan. He acted more kindly to the old man during that week in which he killed him so that he may not suspect a thing. For eight nights, the narrator did something to test and contribute to his murder plan. He made the plan full proof, in a manner in which he could not get caught. Only for his conscience to catch up with him later.

The same effects of a guilty conscience can take part in our lives. They may not be as grave, but they surely can come close. The narrator had no legitimate reason to kill his master and it drove him crazy. Poe also shows us that owning up to the mistakes we have made may be the best resolve. Though it may not fully reserve us from our guilt, it may feel much better. A guilty conscience can be adverse and lead to a severe mental breakdown. Guilt is a bad feeling, the only solution being to refrain from doing wrong to the people who do not deserve it. [Mention the main points of your discussion in your conclusion. What are they? What are the effects of guilt that you discuss? How does Poe use the narration?]

Works Cited

Harper, Benjamin, and Dennis Calero. Tell-tale Heart. , 2013. Print.