Tell Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart is a very creepy, but well written short story. I enjoyed reading the story. It is told from a first person point of view in the past tense. The story starts off with the narrator trying to convince the reader that he is not crazy. That right there is sign of being crazy. If that is one of the very first things being said, it usually means he is crazy. People who have to declare that they are not crazy usually are. People who have to make that kind of disclaimer are what they claim not to be. He is also crazy because his reasoning for killing the old man he lives with is the old man’s “Evil Eye.” The narrator is very fixated on that eye. Crazy people are also fixated on one thing most of the time. The narrator even says that the old man was always kind to him, never insulting, and never did him any harm. The only thing that bothered him was the eye. The narrator only wants to kill the old man to get rid of the eye. It takes him eight days to go through with it because the first seven days the old man sleeps peacefully, but awakes on the eighth. This is when the narrator proceeds to end the man’s life. He can also be crazy because he hears the old man’s heart after he is dead. This leads him to confessing to killing the old man to the police. The narrator of the  story is definitely crazy.

Neighborhood

            I live in the neighborhood commonly known as Andersonville-West Edgewater. I definitely live on the Northside of Chicago. The street my house is located on is

Olive Ave.

It is just North of Bryn Mawr (5600 North) and between Ravenswood (1800 West) and Hermitage (1700 West). My house is pretty much dead center in the middle on the North side of the street. My house considered to be the “Chicago Bungalow” style house.

There are many different families on my street and is very child friendly. Children range from eight months old to fifteen years old (which would be me). As the oldest minor on the street, I often baby-sit for the children on the block. I also baby-sit for a family that lives on the corner of Bryn Mawr and Hermitage.

Just a few weeks ago, our block had a “Progressive Dinner.” A progressive dinner is were different houses provide different courses of the meal. The dinner was mainly for adults and I got the job of watching ten children while they got to have their dinner party. Then dinner started off at my house for appetizers and then continued to the family who lives at Bryn Mawr and Hermitage for soup and salad.

After soup and salad, the parents left us to continue their dinner. For dinner, the parents ordered us pizza and we had cupcakes for desert. It was quite the experience to get all of them food to eat. The minute I would come out with seconds for one, another would be ready for some. After everyone was finally full, we proceeded to go to the basement to have a “giant sleepover.” Everyone settled in sleeping bags or on couches to watch the movie Megamind.

After the movie was over everyone was still awake, so I put on another movie. Everyone voted on watching Planet 51. After putting it on, the lights were turned off and popcorn was made. Once this happened, everyone settled down and watched the movie in peace and quiet.  About halfway through the movie, some were falling asleep and when the movie was almost over, the parents started coming back to pick up their children.

My neighborhood is a great neighborhood to live in. It is very child friendly and close. As from the statements above, it is pretty close that we are close. The adults like to get together and children all get along to have an eventful evening without arguments or nonsense going on.