What makes a horror story a “horror” story? According to Sharon A. Russell’s essay, “What is the Horror Genre?,” readers can define and label fiction as horror by seeing the way the story is organized and the themes of the story. The short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allan Poe, is an example of the horror genre. From the way the story is organized, focused on the plot, and how the story is explained to the reader, using Russell’s reflections, this could easily be labeled as horror.
To start off, suspense is likely the most common theme in horror, and “The Tell-Tale Heart” uses many instances of suspense. In the second paragraph of “What is the Horror Genre?”, Russell states that many horror stories share the trait of suspense and how most readers can tell when something is going to happen simply because it is a horror story. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the reader can instantly sense that something is wrong with the narrator, since he tries to claim that his madness is beneficial to him, he states “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?”. And claims that he is going to kill his neighbour, saying “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”. As the story progresses he keeps telling the readers that he was going to kill the old man, but the readers have no idea how or when.
One thing Russell says is that the horror genre often focuses more on the plot than the characters or the setting. Russell states “When suspense is an important element in fiction we may often find that the plot is the most critical part of the story. We care more about what happens next than about who the characters are or where the story is set.” “The Tell-Tale Heart” exemplifies this opinion. It is not stated where the story takes place, nor is there description of the inside of the neighbour’s house. The author does not tell the audience the old man’s or the narrator’s names. Readers do not know what either of them are like, their ages or occupations. The story focuses much more on the plot. The story focuses on the plot by explaining many things in lots of details. It mainly focuses on the narrator’s plan and what he was doing, rather than who he is.
Another way a story can be distinguished as horror is the way the story is told to the reader. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is told from the perspective of the narrator, using I, me, and myself while talking about everything. He is clearly mad and is driven to murder his neighbour because he claims the neighbour had an “evil eye” that would make his blood run cold. Then later in the narrative, he admits to the murder because he was so mad he thought he could still hear the old man’s heart beating in the floorboards after he had killed him. In both cases it was an internal source that drove him crazy. However, the narrator was so sure that others could hear the heartbeat too, and were mocking him by staying there and talking to him. Because it is told from the narrator’s perspective, we can only assume that the heart wasn’t actually still beating, but we don’t know for sure.
In conclusion “The Tell-Tale Heart” can be categorized as horror based on the way it is organized and told to the readers. The use of suspense, the focus on the plot, and the way the narrator presents the story fits into Russell’s statements about horror in her analysis. All in all, the story “The Tell-Tale Heart” fits very well with the horror genre.