The document analyzes the setting in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "A Tell-Tale Heart". It finds that there are two main settings: the setting of place, which is solely in the old man's dark chamber; and the setting of time, which revolves around midnight when the narrator commits the murder, mornings when he speaks to the man, and 4am when he finishes. The analysis concludes that Poe purposefully kept the setting brief to create an eerie atmosphere for the reader.

1. INTRINSIC ELEMENT
ANALYSIS: SETTING IN “A
TELL-TALE HEART” BY EDGAR
ALLAN POE
Kania Manika Paramahita

2. Abstract
In this writing, the writer tries to analyze the
intrinsic element of “A Tell-Tale Heart” by
Edgar Allan Poe. The purpose of this
writing is to analyze the setting in the story.
From the analysis of the story, the writer
finds out that there are two main settings in
the drama: setting of place and setting of
time. It can be concluded that setting plays
an important role in the story.
Keywords: intrinsic element, setting, setting
of place, setting of time

3. Introduction
According to Samuel Coleridge, prose is
“words in their best order, where poetry is the
best words in the best order.” Prose includes
fiction and non-fiction. Fiction has various
genres such as mystery, action, romance,
and others. Meanwhile, the examples of non-
fiction works are essays, scientific reports, or
newspaper articles.

4. Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was born in
Boston, Massachusetts, on
January 19, 1809. His first
poem collection, Tamerlane,
and Other Poems, was
published in 1827. In 1835,
Poe became the editor of the
Southern Literary Messenger
in Richmond, and he married
his cousin Virgina in the next
year. Over the next ten years,
he established himself as a
poet, story writer, and an
editor. After his wife’s death in
1847, Poe struggled with
depression and alcoholism.
He died on October 7, 1849
due to “acute congestion of
the brain”.

5. Summary
“A Tell-Tale Heart” tells the story about a man
who commits a murder to an old man just
because (according to the man’s point of
view) the old man has blue eyes that
resembled of a vulture. The man dismembers
the old man’s body part and hides them
under the wooden plank in the old man’s
chamber. When the policemen come the
investigate, he can hear the old man’s heart
beating. Frightened, he finally confesses that
he have committed a murder.

6. Discussion
1. Setting of place
The story only revolves around the old man’s
chamber. Poe does not describe the place in
detail to give the eerie feeling to the readers. He
only gives the description that the old man’s
chamber is pitch black and dark.
“His room was as black as pitch with the thick
darkness (for the shutters were close fastened,
through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he
could not see the opening of the door, and I
kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.” (Poe: 245)

7. 2. Setting of time
There are three settings of time that the writer
can find: around the midnight, the morning,
and four o’clock. From those settings of time,
we can see that the main focus of the story
happens just in overnight.

8. The most important setting of time in the story
is in the midnight because most of the story
happens around this time. The man always
watch the old man sleeping in the midnight,
and he murders the old man in the midnight as
well.
“And every night, about midnight, I turned the
latch of his door and opened it—oh, so gently!”
(Poe: 244)
“So you see he would have been a very
profound old man, indeed, to suspect that
every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him
while he slept.” (Poe: 244-245)

9. Meanwhile, the story tells us that after
watching the old man sleeping in the
night, the man always speak
courageously to the man in the
morning, pretending nothing has
happened.
“And every morning, when the day
broke, I went boldly into the chamber,
and spoke courageously to him.” (Poe:
244)

10. The last setting of time, four o’clock, is
the time when the man finished his
“labors”: murdering the old man.
“When I had made an end of these
labors, it was four o’clock—still dark at
midnight.” (Poe: 246)

11. Conclusion
From the analysis of the story, we can see
that Poe only gives brief explanation about
the setting. He only describes the setting of
place and time, without giving elaborate
description about those settings. Poe does
this on purpose: to give the eerie feeling to
the readers, since they do not know the exact
settings of the story. It can be concluded that
as one of the intrinsic elements, setting plays
important role in a story.

12. Bibliography
 Poets.org. Edgar Allan Poe. Accessed at
November 28th, 2016 from Poets.org:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/edgar-
allan-poe
 Reference.com. What is Prose. Accessed
at June 5th, 2017 from Reference.com:
https://www.reference.com/education/prose
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