Brockington College English Department

SCHEME OF WORK

Unit title: Year 7 Gothic Genre

Aims:
 To develop ability and confidence in reading and understanding fictional texts.
 To develop ability and confidence in reading and understanding non-fictional texts.
 To develop an understanding of the relationship between texts and the contexts in which they were
written.
 To develop ability to draw comparisons and contrasts between texts.
 To develop understanding of the key techniques used in writing to inform, argue and persuade.

Links to KS3 Programme of Study

READING
Pupils should be taught to:
 develop an appreciation and love of reading, and read increasingly challenging material independently
through:
 reading a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, including high-quality works from:
• English literature, both pre-1914 and contemporary
• seminal world literature
 understand increasingly challenging texts through:
 learning new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of
context and dictionaries
 making inferences and referring to evidence in the text
 knowing the purpose, audience for and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support
comprehension
 checking their understanding to make sure that what they have read makes sense.
 read critically through:
 knowing how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and
organisational features, presents meaning
 studying setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these

WRITING
Pupils should be taught to:
 write accurately, fluently, effectively and at length for pleasure and information through:
 writing for a wide range of purposes and audiences, including:
• well-structured formal expository and narrative essays
• a range of other narrative and non-narrative texts, including arguments, and personal and formal
letters
 summarising and organising material, and supporting ideas and arguments with any necessary factual
detail
 applying their growing knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and text structure to their writing and selecting
the appropriate form
 drawing on knowledge of literary and rhetorical devices from their reading and listening to enhance the
impact of their writing
 plan, draft, edit and proof-read through:
 considering how their writing reflects the audiences and purposes for which it was intended
 amending the vocabulary, grammar and structure of their writing to improve its coherence and overall
effectiveness
 paying attention to accurate grammar, punctuation and spelling; applying the spelling patterns and rules
set out in English Appendix 1 to the key stage 1 and 2 programmes of study for English.
GRAMMAR
Pupils should be taught to:
 consolidate and build on their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary through:
 studying the effectiveness and impact of the grammatical features of the texts they read
 drawing on new vocabulary and grammatical constructions from their reading and using these consciously
in their writing and speech to achieve particular effects
 using Standard English confidently in their own writing and speech
 discussing reading, writing and spoken language with precise and confident use of linguistic and literary
terminology.
Key Skills to Embed
Reading Skills:
 Relationship between texts (extracts) and context
 Developing confidence in reading 19th Century extracts
Writing Skills:
 Articles (TAP)
 Planning
 Proof reading
Grammar
 Sentence structure
 Tense
 Apostrophes
 Word classes
Assessment (linked to GCSE)

Assessment tasks:
Write an article (linked to the context of Gothic) Assessment: Lang. Comp. 2 Section B
Suggested activities:
Other Comments:
MCQ and grammar tasks for starter tasks to test content retention and
subject knowledge.

Possible teaching outline:

Week Content and Focus Possible texts

1 Context and conventions of Gothic Genre Woman in Black extract

(AO1)
2 Gothic setting and creation of atmosphere Northanger Abbey, Christabel, Jekyll
(AO2) and Hyde
3 Gothic characters and impact of language Dracula, Frankenstein
(AO2)
4 Demonstration of tension and structural Red Room
devices (AO2)
5 Narrative voice and whole text structure Tell Tale Heart
6 Assessment and Global Feedback (final assessment using Tell Tale
Heart)
Woman in Black Extract
 Christabel
BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
PART I
'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu—whit! Tu—whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;
From her kennel beneath the rock
She maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?

The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray:
'Tis a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,

Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothèd knight;
And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that's far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke,

The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak
But moss and rarest misletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly,

The lovely lady Christabel!
 It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is she cannot tell.—
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

The night is chill; the forest bare;

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek—
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!

Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,

Drest in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandl'd were,
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she—
Beautiful exceedingly!
Jekyll and Hyde (Chapter 8)

It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her
back as though the wind had tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most
diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind made talking difficult, and flecked the
blood into the face. It seemed to have swept the streets unusually bare of
passengers, besides; for Mr. Utterson thought he had never seen that part of
London so deserted. He could have wished it otherwise; never in his life had he
been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch his fellow-creatures; for
struggle as he might, there was borne in upon his mind a crushing anticipation
of calamity. The square, when they got there, was all full of wind and dust, and
the thin trees in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing. Poole,
who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead, now pulled up in the middle of
the pavement, and in spite of the biting weather, took off his hat and mopped his
brow with a red pocket-handkerchief. But for all the hurry of his cowing, these
were not the dews of exertion that he wiped away, but the moisture of some
strangling anguish; for his face was white and his voice, when he spoke, harsh
and broken…
 Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey

The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the
whole afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it blew
and rained violently. Catherine, as she crossed the hall, listened
to the tempest with sensations of awe; and, when she heard it
rage round a corner of the ancient building and close with
sudden fury a distant door, felt for the first time that she was
really in an abbey. Yes, these were characteristic sounds; they
brought to her recollection a countless variety of dreadful
situations and horrid scenes, which such buildings had
witnessed, and such storms ushered in; and most heartily did
she rejoice in the happier circumstances attending her
entrance within walls so solemn! She had nothing to dread from
midnight assassins or drunken gallants. Henry had certainly
been only in jest in what he had told her that morning. In a
house so furnished, and so guarded, she could have nothing to
explore or to suffer, and might go to her bedroom as securely
as if it had been her own chamber at Fullerton. Thus wisely
fortifying her mind, as she proceeded upstairs, she was
enabled, especially on perceiving that Miss Tilney slept only
two doors from her, to enter her room with a tolerably stout
heart; and her spirits were immediately assisted by the cheerful
blaze of a wood fire. “How much better is this,” said she, as she
walked to the fender — “how much better to find a fire ready
lit, than to have to wait shivering in the cold till all the family
are in bed, as so many poor girls have been obliged to do, and
then to have a faithful old servant frightening one by coming in
with a faggot! How glad I am that Northanger is what it is! If it
had been like some other places, I do not know that, in such a
night as this, I could have answered for my courage: but now,
to be sure, there is nothing to alarm one.”

Dracula
The protagonist of the novel, Jonathan Harker, first meets Count
Dracula in his castle. He is under the illusion that Dracula is a
Transylvanian businessman, and goes to the castle unaware of the
danger he is in. Here is his first description of the count.

His face was a strong- a very strong- aquiline, with high bridge of the thin
nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair
growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His
eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with
bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as
I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-
looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips,
whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his
years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed;
the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The
general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in
the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them
now close to me, I could not but notice they were rather coarse- broad,
with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the
palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the
Count leaned over to me and his hands touched me, I could not repress
a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible
feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not
conceal.
 Extract from Frankenstein – Chapter 5.

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my

toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the
instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the
lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain
pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when,
by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the
creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the

wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His
limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!
Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries
beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly
whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his
watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in
which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human
nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing
life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I
had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had
finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust
filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed
out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable
to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had
before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavouring to
seek a few moments of forgetfulness.
 The Red Room (‘The Ghost of Fear’) - H G Wells
“I can assure you,” said I, “that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me.” And
I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand.
“It is your own choosing,” said the man with the withered arm, and glanced at me
askance.
“Eight-and-twenty years,” said I, “I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.”
The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open. “Ay,” she broke
in; “and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house,
I reckon. There’s a many things to see, when one’s still but eight-and-twenty.” She
swayed her head slowly from side to side. “A many things to see and sorrow for.”
I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of their
house by their droning insistence. I put down my empty glass on the table and looked
about the room, and caught a glimpse of myself, abbreviated and broadened to an
impossible sturdiness, in the queer old mirror at the end of the room. “Well,” I said,
“if I see anything tonight, I shall be so much the wiser. For I come to the business with
an open mind.”
“It’s your own choosing,” said the man, with the withered arm, once more.
I heard the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in the passage outside,
and the door creaked on its hinges as a second old man entered, more bent, more
wrinkled, more aged even than the first. He supported himself by a single crutch, his
eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from
his decaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an armchair on the opposite side of the
table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with the withered arm gave
this new-comer a short glance of positive dislike; the old woman took no notice of his
arrival, but remained with her eyes fixed steadily on the fire.
“I said — it’s your own choosing,” said the man with the withered arm, when the
coughing had ceased for a while.
“It’s my own choosing,” I answered.
The man with the shade became aware of my presence for the first time, and threw his
head back for a moment and sideways, to see me. I caught a momentary glimpse of his
eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then he began to cough and splutter again.
“Why don’t you drink?” said the man with the withered arm, pushing the beer towards
him. The man with the shade, poured out a glassful with a shaky arm that splashed
half as much again on the deal table. A monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the
wall and mocked his action as he poured and drank. I must confess I had scarce
expected these grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman in
senility, something crouching and atavistic; the human qualities seem to drop from old
people insensibly day by day. The three of them made me feel uncomfortable, with
their gaunt silences, their bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness to me and to one
another.
“If,” said I, “you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will make myself
comfortable there.”
The old man with the cough jerked his head back so suddenly that it startled me, and
shot another glance of his red eyes at me from under the shade; but no one answered
me. I waited a minute, glancing from one to the other.
“If,” I said a little louder, “if you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will
relieve you from the task of entertaining me.”
“There’s a candle on the slab outside the door,” said the man with the withered arm,
looking at my feet as he addressed me. “But if you go to the red room to-night —”
(“This night of all nights!” said the old woman.)
“You go alone.”
“Very well,” I answered. “And which way do I go?”
“You go along the passage for a bit,” said he, “until you come to a door, and through
that is a spiral staircase, and halfway up that is a landing and another door covered
with baize. Go through that and down the long corridor to the end, and the red room is
on your left up the steps.”
“Have I got that right?” I said, and repeated his directions. He corrected me in one
particular.
“And are you really going?” said the man with the shade, looking at me again for the
third time, with that queer, unnatural tilting of the face.
(“This night of all nights!” said the old woman.)
“It is what I came for,” I said, and moved towards the door. As I did so, the old man
with the shade rose and staggered round the table, so as to be closer to the others and
to the fire. At the door I turned and looked at them, and saw they were all close
together, dark against the firelight, staring at me over their shoulders, with an intent
expression on their ancient faces.
“Good-night,” I said, setting the door open.
“It’s your own choosing,” said the man with the withered arm.
I left the door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then I shut them in and
walked down the chilly, echoing passage.
I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners in whose charge her
ladyship had left the castle, and the deep-toned, old-fashioned furniture of the
housekeeper’s room in which they foregathered, affected me in spite of my efforts to
keep myself at a matter-of-fact phase. They seemed to belong to another age, an older
age, an age when things spiritual were different from this of ours, less certain; an age
when omens and witches were credible, and ghosts beyond denying. Their very
existence was spectral; the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains. The
ornaments and conveniences of the room about them were ghostly — the thoughts of
vanished men, which still haunted, rather than participated in the world of today. But
with an effort I sent such thoughts to the right-about. The long, draughty subterranean
passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and
quiver. The echoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow came
sweeping up after me, and one fled before me into the darkness overhead. I came to
the landing and stopped there for a moment, listening to a rustling that I fancied I
heard; then, satisfied of the absolute silence, I pushed open the baize-covered door and
stood in the corridor.
The effect was scarcely what I expected, for the moonlight, coming in by the great
window on the grand staircase, picked out everything in vivid black shadow or silvery
illumination. Everything was in its place: the house might have been deserted on the
yesterday instead of eighteen months ago. There were candles in the sockets of the
sconces, and whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon the polished flooring
was distributed so evenly as to be invisible in the moonlight. I was about to advance,
and stopped abruptly. A bronze group stood upon the landing, hidden from me by the
corner of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvellous distinctness upon the white
panelling, and gave me the impression of someone crouching to waylay me. I stood
rigid for half a minute perhaps. Then, with my hand in the pocket that held my
revolver, I advanced, only to discover a Ganymede and Eagle glistening in the
moonlight. That incident for at time restored my nerve, and a porcelain Chinaman on a
buhl table, whose head rocked silently as I passed him, scarcely startled me.
The door to the red room and the steps up to it were in a shadowy corner. I moved my
candle from side to side, in order to see clearly the nature of the recess in which I
stood before opening the door. Here it was, thought I, that my predecessor was found,
and the memory of that story gave me a sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced
over my shoulder at the Ganymede in the moonlight, and opened the door of the red
room rather hastily, with my face half turned to the pallid silence of the landing.
***
I entered, closed the door behind me at once, turned the key I found in the lock within,
and stood with the candle held aloft, surveying the scene of my vigil, the great red
room of Lorraine Castle, in which the young duke had died. Or rather, in which he had
begun his dying, for he had opened the door and fallen headlong down the steps I had
just ascended. That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant attempt to conquer the
ghostly tradition of the place; and never, I thought, had apoplexy better served the
ends of superstition. And there were other and older stories that clung to the room,
back to the half-credible beginning of it all, the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end
that came to her husband’s jest of frightening her. And looking around that large
shadowy room, with its shadowy window bays, its recesses and alcoves, one could
well understand the legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating
darkness. My candle was a little tongue of flame in its vastness that failed to pierce the
opposite end of the room, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond its
island of light.
I resolved to make a systematic examination of the place at once, and dispel the
fanciful suggestions of its obscurity before they obtained a hold upon me. After
satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, I began to walk about the room, peering
round each article of furniture, tucking up the valances of the bed, and opening its
curtains wide. I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several
windows before closing the shutters, leant forward and looked up the blackness of the
wide chimney, and tapped the dark oak panelling for any secret opening. There were
two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair of sconces bearing candles, and on the
mantelshelf too, were more candles in china candlesticks. All these I lit one after the
other. The fire was laid — an unexpected consideration from the old housekeeper —
and I lit it, to keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was burning well, I
stood round with my back to it and regarded the room again. I had pulled up a chintz-
covered armchair and a table, to form a kind of barricade before me, and on this lay
my revolver ready to hand. My precise examination had done me good, but I still
found the remoter darkness of the place, and its perfect stillness, too stimulating for
the imagination. The echoing of the stir and crackling of the fire was no sort of
comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular had that undefinable
quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thing that comes so
easily in silence and solitude. At last, to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into
it, and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there. I stood that candle upon
the floor of the alcove, and left it in that position.
By this time I was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although to my reason
there was no adequate cause for the condition. My mind, however, was perfectly clear.
I postulated quite unreservedly that nothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the
time I began to string some rhymes together, Ingoldsby fashion, of the original legend
of the place. A few I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant. For the same
reason I also abandoned, after a time, a conversation with myself upon the
impossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three old and distorted
people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks
of the room troubled me; even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one
in the alcove flared in a draught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows and
penumbra perpetually shifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy, I recalled the
candles I had seen in the passage, and, with a slight effort, walked out into the
moonlight, carrying a candle and leaving the door open, and presently returned with as
many as ten. These I put in various knick-knacks of china with which the room was
sparsely adorned, lit and placed where the shadows had lain deepest, some on the
floor, some in the window recesses, until at last my seventeen candles were so
arranged that not an inch of the room darkened, but had the direct light of at least one
of them. It occurred to me that when the ghost came, I could warn him not to trip over
them. The room was now quite brightly illuminated. There was something very cheery
and reassuring in these little streaming flames, and snuffing them gave me an
occupation, and afforded a helpful sense of the passage of time. Even with that
however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighed heavily upon me. It was after
midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out, and the black shadow sprang
back to its place. I did not see the candle go out; I simply turned and saw that the
darkness was there, as one might start and see the unexpected presence of a stranger.
“By Jove!” said I aloud; “That draught’s a strong one!” and taking the matches from
the table, I walked across the room in a leisurely manner to relight the corner again.
My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded with the second, something
seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned my head involuntarily, and saw that
the two candles on the little table by the fireplace were extinguished. I rose at once to
my feet.
“Odd!” I said. “Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?”
I walked back, relit one, and as I did so, I saw the candle in the right sconce of one of
the mirrors wink and go right out, and almost immediately its companion followed it.
There was no mistake about it. The flame vanished, as if the wicks had been suddenly
nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking,
but black. While I stood gaping, the candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the
shadows seemed to take another step towards me.
“This won’t do!” said I, and first one and then another candle on the mantelshelf
followed. “What’s up?” I cried, with a queer high note getting into my voice
somehow. At that the candle on the wardrobe went out, and the one I had relit in the
alcove followed.
“Steady on!” I said. “These candles are wanted,” speaking with a half-hysterical
facetiousness, and scratching away at a match, all the while, for the mantel
candlesticks. My hands trembled so much that twice I missed the rough paper of the
matchbox. As the mantel emerged from darkness again, two candles in the remoter
end of the window were eclipsed. But with the same match I also relit the larger
mirror candles, and those on the floor near the doorway, so that for the moment I
seemed to gain on the extinctions. But then in a volley there vanished four lights at
once in different corners of the room, and I struck another match in quivering haste,
and stood hesitating whither to take it.
As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two candles on the
table. With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove, then into the corner, and then into
the window, relighting three, as two more vanished by the fireplace; then, perceiving a
better way, I dropped the matches on the iron-bound deed-box in the corner, and
caught up the bedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches;
but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the shadows I feared and
fought against returned, and crept in upon me, first a step gained on this side of me
and then on that. It was like a ragged storm-cloud sweeping out of the stars. Now and
then one returned for a minute, and was lost again. I was now almost frantic with the
horror of the coming darkness, and my self-possession deserted me. I leaped panting
and dishevelled from candle to candle in a vain struggle against that remorseless
advance.
I bruised myself on the thigh against the table, I sent a chair headlong, I stumbled and
fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall. My candle rolled away from me,
and I snatched another as I rose. Abruptly this was blown out, as I swung it off the
table, by the wind of my sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining
candles followed. But there was light still in the room, a red light that stayed off the
shadows from me. The fire! Of course I could still thrust my candle between the bars
and relight it!
I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals, and
splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps towards the grate, and
incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glow vanished, the reflections
rushed together and vanished, and as I thrust the candle between the bars darkness
closed upon me like the shutting of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace,
sealed my vision, and crushed the last vestiges of reason from my brain. The candle
fell from my hand. I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous
blackness away from me, and, lifting up my voice, screamed with all my might —
once, twice, thrice. Then I think I must have staggered to my feet. I know I thought
suddenly of the moonlit corridor and, with my head bowed and my arms over my face,
made a run for the door.
But I had forgotten the exact position of the door, and struck myself heavily against
the corner of the bed. I staggered back, turned, and was either struck or struck myself
against some other bulky furniture. I have a vague memory of battering myself thus, to
and fro in the darkness, of a cramped struggle, and of my own wild crying as I darted
to and fro, of a heavy blow at last upon my forehead, a horrible sensation of falling
that lasted an age, of my last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then I remember no
more.
***
I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged, and the man with the
withered arm was watching my face. I looked about me, trying to remember what had
happened, and for a space I could not recollect. I turned to the corner, and saw the old
woman, no longer abstracted, pouring out some drops of medicine from a little blue
phial into a glass. “Where am I?” I asked; “I seem to remember you, and yet I cannot
remember who you are.”
They told me then, and I heard of the haunted red room as one who hears a tale. “We
found you at dawn,” said he, “and there was blood on your forehead and lips.”
It was very slowly I recovered my memory of my experience. “You believe now,”
said the old man, “that the room is haunted?” He spoke no longer as one who greets an
intruder, but as one who grieves for a broken friend.
“Yes,” said I; “the room is haunted.”
“And you have seen it. And we, who have lived here all our lives, have never set eyes
upon it. Because we have never dared . . . Tell us, is it truly the old earl who —”
“No,” said I; “it is not.”
“I told you so,” said the old lady, with the glass in her hand. “It is his poor young
countess who was frightened —”
“It is not,” I said. “There is neither ghost of earl nor ghost of countess in that room,
there is no ghost there at all; but worse, far worse —”
“Well?” they said.
“The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man,” said I; “and that is, in all its
nakedness — Fear! Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with
reason that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It followed me through the corridor,
it fought against me in the room —”
I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence. My hand went up to my
bandages.
Then the man with the shade sighed and spoke. “That is it,” said he. “I knew that was
it. A power of darkness. To put such a curse upon a woman! It lurks there always. You
can feel it even in the daytime, even of a bright summer’s day, in the hangings, in the
curtains, keeping behind you however you face about. In the dusk it creeps along the
corridor and follows you, so that you dare not turn. There is Fear in that room of hers
— black Fear, and there will be — so long as this house of sin endures.”

The Tell-Tale Heart - 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.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen
me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -with what caution -with what foresight -with
what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week
before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it -oh
so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all
closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to
see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly -very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the
old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could
see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my
head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously -cautiously (for the hinges
creaked) –I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for
seven long nights -every night just at midnight -but I found the eye always closed; and so it was
impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every
morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him,
calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he
would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I
looked in upon him while he slept.
 Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's
minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my
own powers -of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I
was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I
fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if
startled. Now you may think that I drew back -but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick
darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he
could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin
fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out -"Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the
meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; -just as I have done,
night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall. Presently I heard a slight groan, and
I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief -oh, no! -it was the low
stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound
well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom,
deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what
the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake
ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since
growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to
himself -"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney -it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is
merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with
these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had
stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful
influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel -although he neither saw nor heard -to
feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to
open a little -a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it -you cannot imagine how
stealthily, stealthily -until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the
crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

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 man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct,
precisely upon the damned spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the
sense? -now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when
enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It
increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I
tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror
must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! -do you mark me well I have
told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence
of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some
minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart
must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me -the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old
man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He
shrieked once -once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over
him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with
a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it
ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone,
stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no
pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I
took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of
all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the
scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye -not even his -
could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out -no stain of any kind -no
blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all -ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock -still dark as midnight. As the
bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light
heart, -for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with
perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night;
suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they
(the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, -for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my
own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the
house. I bade them search -search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his
treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room,
and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect
triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They
sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting
pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and
still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: -It continued and became more distinct: I talked
more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness -until, at length, I found
that the noise was not within my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale; -but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet
the sound increased –and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound -much such a sound as a
watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath -and yet the officers heard it not. I
talked more quickly -more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about
trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would
they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the
observations of the men -but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed -I
raved -I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but
the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -louder -louder! And still the men
chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! -no, no! They heard! -
they suspected! –they knew! -they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I
think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I
could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now -again! -
hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -tear up the planks! here, here!
-It is the beating of his hideous heart!”