SOURCE: "The Theme of Time in The Tell-Tale Heart'," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 5, No. 4, Summer, 1968, pp. 378-82.

In the following essay, Gargano analyzes the symbolism in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and contends that the images in the tale point to the fact that, unbeknownst to the narrator, his real foe is not Death, but Time.

The critic who wishes to read Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" as a mere horror story may be content to accept its incidents as unmotivated and mysterious. How, the critic may argue, can the story be rationally explained when the narrator himself is at a loss to account for the frenzy inspired in him by his victim's "evil eye?" The critic may further maintain that Poe deliberately establishes and enhances the mystery of his tale by having the murderer eschew all explanations for his deed: "Object there was none. Passion there...