Question

edgar allan poe’s “the tell - tale heart”
“the tell - tale heart”
by edgar allan poe
true!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous i had been and am;
but why will you say that i am mad? the disease had sharpened my
senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. above all was the sense of
hearing acute. i heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. i heard
many things in hell. how, then, am i mad? hearken! and observe how
healthily—how calmly i can tell you the whole story.
it is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once
conceived, it haunted me day and night. object there was none.
passion there was none. i loved the old man. he had never wronged
me. he had never given me insult. for his gold i had no desire. i think
it was his eye! yes, it was this! he had the eye of a vulture—a pale
blue eye, with a film over it. whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran
cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—i made up my mind to take
the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
what theme in your literature does this excerpt illustrate?
options:
an upbeat ending
terror and fear
life and death
an unsolved mystery

Explanation:

The excerpt from Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart opens with the narrator's frantic defense of his sanity, reveals his obsessive, murderous fixation on the old man's eye, and establishes a tense, menacing tone. This clearly centers on emotions of terror and fear, which align with the core mood of the passage. The other options do not fit: there is no upbeat tone, the conflict is driven by the narrator's violent obsession rather than a broad life-and-death theme, and no unsolved mystery is presented in this opening section.

Answer:

terror and fear