FROM THE BLACK CAULDRON TO THE WHITE PAGE: THE WITCH AS A NARRATOR OF POE’S “THE TELL-TALE HEART”

Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a famous short story of crime fiction first published in 1843. The tale starts with an unnamed and unreliable narrator addressing an unknown person, often regarded as the reader, about the details of a crime that the narrator had committed in the past. Many details such as the relationship between the narrator and the victim (who happened to be an old man), the motivation behind the crime, the gender of the narrator, and many other related issues are not sufficiently explained in the story. Nevertheless, critics have provided various ideas and interpretations as to what remained ambiguously unstated in the story. This paper aims to look at the story from a quite different perspective, that is to say, this paper will point to the possibility that the narrator could be a young female servant who is secretly involved in some witchcraft practices. This hypothesis will be established by highlighting relevant ritual elements in the tale which suggest that the narrative includes more than a mere portrayal of a perfect crime. Additionally, before launching into the examination of the story, this paper will review some critics’ significant suppositions as well as interpretations of some inexplicit notions of the story.