The Tell-Tale Heart Analysis
A Grade 8 ELA worksheet for analyzing Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' focusing on literary devices, character motivation, and plot structure.
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The Tell-Tale Heart: Literary Analysis
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Date:
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Read each question carefully and answer to the best of your ability. Refer to Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' as needed.
1. What is the narrator's primary motivation for killing the old man?
To steal his wealth
Hatred for the old man's 'vulture eye'
Revenge for a past wrong
To prove his sanity
2. Which literary device is most evident in the narrator's repeated assertions of sanity?
Metaphor
Simile
Situational Irony
Dramatic Irony
3. The narrator admits that he is not mad, but rather suffers from an 'over-acuteness of the .'
4. The beating sound the narrator hears at the end of the story is actually his own .
5. The narrator and the old man are enemies before the story begins.
True
False
6. Describe the progression of the narrator's madness throughout the story. Provide specific examples from the text to support your answer.
7. Identify and explain one example of personification and one example of a simile from 'The Tell-Tale Heart.'
Personification:
Simile: