By giving light to dark places, lanterns reveal the truth, which, in the case of the narrator, was destructive. With this purpose, the narrator makes “a very, very little crevice” in it and uses it to make the old man’s eye visible at night (Poe). Most prominently, the lantern represents the lack of insight and the desire to obtain it. The third prominent symbol in the story is the lantern. Finally, the heartbeat serves as the symbol of guilt since the illusion of its sound makes the narrator disclose his secret. Whereas the beating of the heart is what makes a person keep living, the madman refers to the neighbor’s one as “the hellish tattoo of the heart” (Poe). The heart also personifies the narrator’s lack of sympathy and emotions. He admits that the old man’s heart increased his “fury” and encouraged him to take action just like “the beating of a drum” affects a soldier (Poe). Throughout the story, the narrator often refers to himself as a wild and uncontrolled creature. The beating heart is another important symbol of the story, representing the continuous uneasiness of the narrator, which he cannot get rid of even after murdering the old man. Being unable to endure it any longer, the narrator kills the owner of the eye in the hope of gaining peace with himself. By the end of the story, the reader realizes that the hideousness of the character the narrator sees in the eye belongs not to the old man but to himself. He admits that he “could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person” (Poe). The eye has taken away the madman’s attention from anything else in the old neighbor.
In fact, the narrator calls it “the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (Poe). In the story, however, one of the eyes of the narrator’s neighbor is described in a rather sinister and unpleasant way. Eyes are frequently considered as the reflection of a person’s personality and honesty of nature. Even though the word “heart” is present in the story’s title, the eye is the most vividly emphasized symbol throughout the poem.
0 kommentar(er)
