"The Tell-Tale Heart" - Plot Diagram for Edgar Allen Poe's Tell-Tale Heart. Perfect activity for ELA!
Storyboard-Text
EXPOSITION
CONFLICT
RISING ACTION
The narrator is introduced. He wishes to prove his sanity to the readers despite having killed a man over his deformed eye.
CLIMAX
The narrator lives in the same building as an old man who has a disturbing eye. The narrator says that it is deformed, looking like a vulture's eye with a film covering it.
FALLING ACTION
Over the next eight days the narrator plots killing the old man to get rid of the "eye". Each night he enters the old man's room with a lantern until he sees the eye.
RESOLUTION
TICK, TICK, TICK, TIck.....
I confess.. Make it stop!
Finally, one evening, the old man wakes up and screams. Then the narrator pulls the man off the bed and smothers him with his mattress until he can no longer hear the old man's heart beating.
Summoned by a neighbor, the police arrive, citing that someone reported a scream. The narrator tries to cover up by saying it was him that screamed, and that the old man was out of town.
The story ends when the narrator believes he hears a ticking noise that grows louder and louder. He believes that it is the sound of the old man’s heart and confesses to the police.