I have chosen three different aspects for your analysis of the short story:
- Narration and language
- Symbols and sounds
- Narrator and madness (+ the old man)
In your groups, you've worked on these aspects and the way in which they support, elaborate and exemplify our very broad hypothesis: A WEIRD MIND.
Please post notes and quotes from your group as comments below. They are for your fellow students and for you to use when you work together with another group who has worked on the same aspects.
If you find that something is missing from any of the notes, feel free to add you own ideas or ask questions to the group
Gruppe 5:
ReplyDeleteThe Narrator and his Madness:
He is a very nervous person, he is very aware of his surroundings. He is very calculating, and precise. He has a lot of mood swings.
There are two sides to him, the cold and calculating and the feeling side.
He himself does not think he is mad, he only thinks he has a disease.
He can't be mad, because he can tell his story calmly, and because he is able to do the things he does as calmly and calculating as he does. And he can't be mad, because he is able to get away with the murder, if it was not for that damn beating heart.
The fact that he needs to tell us that he is not mad, makes us think the opposite. His focus on the old man's eye reveals his madness. He begins to get a ritual; he opens the old man's door every night around midnight.
He thinks he NEEDS to do it.
He is able to cut him into pieces, which shows how cold he can be to a man he "loved".
He is cold until the very end, where his conscious kicks in and makes him hear the heart.
Who else was in your group?
DeleteNarration + Language:
ReplyDelete• Unreliable narrator
○ Claiming to be sane
• 1st person
○ To give the story authenticity
○ Use of I, very often
○ The reader gets a clear insight into what the author feels
○ Very present narration
• Gives the "victim" or old man characteristics that mirrors himself
• Paranoid
○ Desperate
• The use of in media res
• Not owning up to his disease
• Tries to identify with the old man, l. 55. but merely reflects his own state of mind
• Tries to win the sympathy of the reader, by justifying his actions.
• Crescendo effect = The narrator becomes more and more mad
Language:
• Very descriptive
○ "I turned the latch of his door, and opened it - oh so gently!
• The use of addressing the author directly
○ Gives it a more ominous felling
• Start and stopping, the use of exclamation marks etc.
• Easy to read
• Rhythm is fluid
• Past tense
• "Very, very" + Stealthily, stealthily, cautiously, cautiously etc.
○ Repetition of adjectives
○ To reinforce his message, to strengthen it, to get it a cross.
WHo else was in your group?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete• 1st person narrator
ReplyDelete- Insight into thoughts and feelings
- Use of I, very often
- Very Present narration
- Very present narration
• The use of in media res
• Crescendo effect = the narrator becomes more and more mad
• Very descriptive
- “I turned the latch of his door, and opened it - oh so gently”
• The use of addressing the author directly
- Gives it a more ominous feeling
• Start and stopping, the use of exclamation marks etc
• Easy to read
• Rhythm is fluid
• Past tense
• “Very, very” + stealthily, stealthily, cautiously, cautiously etc
- Repetition of adjectives
- To reinforce his message
First part of the story
• More fluent and well-constructed than the rest of the story
• Ex: page 96, line 2, “The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them”.
- Antithesis: to make his point clear
• The text becomes more chaotic throughout the story
• Ex: Page 97, line 74: “So I opened it - you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily - until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shout out of the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye”.
- Very descriptive
- It is like he is commenting on his own actions (“-you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily[…]).
Second part of the story
• The text becomes more chaotic and hectic, especially after he has murdered the old man
• Ex: page 100, line 54: “Oh God! What could I do? I foamed - I raved - I swore!”
- fragmented
- His paranoia shows
The ending
• “’Villains!’, I shrieked, ‘Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! - Tear up the planks! Here, Here§! - It is the beating of this hideous heart!’”
- Abrupt ending - we don’t know what happens next
Who else was in your group?
DeleteAmir, Tracy, Christian Lykke
ReplyDeleteNarrator:
The narrator is in denial, he does not want to admit that he is insane.
“If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body” P.99,L.11
He continually tries to explain how his actions are not the actions of a mad man, but a wise and cautious one. He wants to appear as if he is trying to convince the reader of his sanity, but really, he is trying to convince himself.
Madness:
The old man that he murders, has done nothing to deserve such a horrible fate. The narrator even admits that the old had never wronged him.
"I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye!”
Because of his insanity, he needs some reason to justify his need to kill, and comes up with the accusation that the old man has “evil eyes”, and he feels that is enough reason to kill him. – This shows just how unreliable he is, and why we don’t believe him when he says he is not insane.