Close Reading Paper - Essay Example

The readers, at the very outset of the story, get a hint about the psychological inconsistency of the narrator and as the story progresses they are clearly confirmed of it. A close reading of the story certainly allows the reader to unveil the intricacies in narrator’s behavior, especially when he enters the old man’s room for the murder and the way he deals affairs with the police officers. The paper also intends to explore the language, imagery, allusion, syntax, and form the writer has used in the story.

“It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old mans face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.” These lines indicate the narrator’s nervousness at the sight of the old man’s eye. This exemplifies the paranoia and mental deterioration of narrator who simply kills a person ‘fearing his eyes’.

Poe, with very short hyphenised sentences draws out the psychological state of the narrator who with his velvet tread, approaches his prey. The words of the narrator, “…but I could see nothing else of the old mans face or person,” clearly unveils the fact that the narrator does not have any personal grudge with the old man. The only thing that makes him nervous was the old man’s eyes. A close reading of this passage clearly indicates that Poe has arranged the sequences of the words so carefully that the readers also feel as entering the old man’s room with the narrator.

Each word is selected so carefully and is capable of increasing the pulse of the readers. When the narrator says the old man has an eye of a ‘vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it’, the readers in their imagination could clearly visualize such an eye. The repetition of the words, “It was open --wide, wide