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"The Tell-Tale Heart" Reading Check

Read each quote from "The Tell-Tale Heart." For each vocabulary word, identify the part of speech for the context in which it is used.

Part of Speech	Quote
	"True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?"
	"Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust [my head] in!"
	"But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision!"
	"...it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye."
	"The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute."
	"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."
	"And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror."

What is your first impression of the narrator? In the first paragraph, what does the narrator insist to the reader?
In what point of view is "The Tell-Tale Heart" told?
- first-person
- second-person
- third-person limited
- third-person omniscient
What is the conflict or inciting incident in the story? (Hint: What bothers the narrator about the old man?)

Poe uses the following simile in the story.
And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses? — 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.
What is being compared to the sound of a watch enveloped (wrapped, covered, or surrounded)?
- the narrator's thoughts
- the sound of the clock in the old man's house
- the beating of the old man's heart
- the sound of the police officers knocking on the door
What crime does the narrator eventually commit? What does the narrator do to hide the evidence?
Why do the police officers come to the old man's house?
- A neighbor heard a noise and reported it to the police.
- The police know the narrator is mad and are looking for evidence to lock him away.
- The police noticed a window in the old man's house was broken.
- The narrator invited the police over for tea.
What does the sound of the beating heart at the end of the story most likely symbolize?
- the ghost of the old man haunting the narrator
- the narrator's guilt over his crimes
- the ticking of the narrator's watch