Vocab
When I broke my arm, I felt an _________, stabbing pain that made me yell out loud.
acute
This is the physical feature of the old man that drove the narrator to madness.
his "vulture eye" or "pale blue eye"
This symbol represents the narrator's guilt and conscience, which grows louder and louder until he is forced to confess.
the beating heart
This is the verb tense used by the narrator while explaining the events of the story.
Past Tense
Make sure you have ________ evidence to support your argument before you present it to the class.
sufficient
After dismembering the body in a tub, the narrator hid the old man's remains in this specific location.
What is under three planks of the chamber floor?
Symbolizing judgment and the inability to hide from the truth, this "evil" object is described as a "pale blue eye, with a film over it."
What is the old man's eye
"His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness..." is an example of this type of figurative language that uses "like" or "as" to make a comparison.
simile
Visiting the historical monument had a ____________ effect on me, making me think deeply about the sacrifices people made in the past.
profound
For seven nights in a row, the narrator did this specific action at midnight before finally killing the old man on the eighth night.
opening the old man's bedroom door and shining a single ray of light from his lantern onto the old man's eye?
This object, which the narrator uses to carefully control what he sees in the dark, symbolizes his false sense of power and his attempt to shed light only on what he perceives as evil.
the lantern
It is the beating of his hideous heart!" is an example of this sound device, where the "h" sound is repeated at the beginning of words.
alliteration
He had the __________ to ask for a raise after being late to work every day for a week.
audacity
This is the sound the narrator heard, both before killing the old man
What is the beating of the old man's heart?
The location symbolizes the dark, hidden parts of the narrators own mind where he tries to bury his terrible secrets.
under the floor boards
"A low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton" is an example of this, which creates a vivid picture and appeals to the sense of hearing.
imagery
The detective showed great __________ by noticing the tiny clue that everyone else had missed, which helped her solve the case.
sagacity
The narrator insisted he was not mad, but rather suffered from this condition which made his senses, especially his hearing, incredibly sharp.
over-acuteness of the senses
The narrator compares the sound of the heart to this object, which symbolizes the inescapable passage of time and the countdown toward death and discovery.
the watch
The narrator's repeated insistence that he is sane—"I am not mad!"—while describing a murder is an example of this literary device, where the audience knows the opposite is true.
dramatic irony