LITERATURE QUESTIONS
GOTHIC LITERATURE
|
Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
|
|
|
His clouded blue eye
|
|
|
His old house
|
|
|
His children
|
|
|
His wrinkled face
|
Detailed explanation-1: -What specifically is it about the old man that troubles the narrator? Why does it trouble him? It is the old man’s eye-he has the eye of a vulture-pale blue with a milky film over it. The narrator loves the old man, but hates his eye-it vexes and disturbs him.
Detailed explanation-2: -In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart, ” the vulture eye is a term the narrator uses to describe the old man’s creepy eye, which he detests. The eye is the narrator’s only source of anger toward the old man: he admits that otherwise, he loves the old man, as he has never done the narrator any wrong.
Detailed explanation-3: -The old man’s eye is blue with a “film” or “veil” covering it. This could be a medical condition, like a corneal ulcer, but symbolically it means that the characters have issues with their “inner vision” – what’s commonly known as one’s outlook on the world. They are stuck. Everything is obscured for them.
Detailed explanation-4: -Soon, the narrator hears a dull pounding that he interprets as the old man’s terrified heartbeat. Worried that a neighbor might hear the loud thumping, he attacks and kills the old man. He then dismembers the body and hides the pieces below the floorboards in the bedroom.