Exercises: Tips for Text Analysis

Exercise A

Instructions:
First, you should read the complete short story before focussing on some details in the following exercises. Do this with a (digital) pen in your hands and an (online) dictionary at hand and make good use of the reading strategies above:

Moreover, do some research on Edgar Allan Poe’s life and work. Note down three facts that you consider to be relevant to the analysis of the “Tell-Tale Heart”.

Exercise B

Instructions:
Complete this short summary as part of an introduction to your text analysis so that it gives your readers a proper idea of what the text is about:

Exercise C

Instructions:
Structure: Get those headlines for different paragraphs of the short story into the correct order.

Exercise D

Instructions:
Narrator/Characters: Poe’s short story features a prototypical example of an unreliable narrator. As already stated above, one must be careful with statements of first-person narrators. Reveal contradictions in the narrator’s speech and actions and prove that the narrator is not trustworthy. Complete the grid below.

Exercise E

Instructions:
Language: To interpret a stylistic device in context you should include the following aspects:

• name the stylistic device
• refer to it by quoting directly or indirectly
• interpretation: explain its meaning in context / effect on the reader

Here’s an example:
The narrator makes excessive use of repetitions. There is one striking example towards the end of the story, when he refers to the beating heart: “It grew louder --louder --louder!” (l. 130). It emphasizes his deteriorating mental state and that he is overwhelmed by his feelings of guilt which can’t be suppressed and controlled any more.

Identify the stylistic device in the short passages below and provide a short interpretation.

“now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage” (l. 70-73)

"All in vain; because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim." (l. 57 f.)

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! --here, here! --it is the beating of his hideous heart!" (l. 137 f.)

Exercise F

Instructions:
Below you find examples for themes and symbols in the story. Browse the text again to find textual detail for those two aspects (form) and explain what they stand for in the story / why they are employed (function).