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!" ("The Telltale Heart")

Basic set up:

This is the end of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart." The narrator's killed an old dude and hidden him under the floorboards. When two policemen come to speak to him at the end of the story, he thinks he hears the dead man's heart beating, and he freaks out and confesses.

Edgar Allan Poe was a huge inspiration for Southern Gothic writers, though he preceded them by almost a century. Poe was also from the South, and his work is filled with the macabre and the grotesque. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a great example of this, and we can see it in the passage above.

It's pretty grotesque that the narrator of this story committed a murder in the first place. It's even more grotesque that he hides the body under the floorboards. But what's really creepy is that the narrator can hear the dead man's heart beating under the floorboards. Now, we don't really know what this heartbeat actually is: Is the narrator just plain crazy? Is the sound he hears actually the beating of his own heart? Is the dead dude under the floorboards actually still alive somehow?

Southern Gothic writers love to play around with these distinctions—often, it's not totally clear what's real and what's not.

Poe really builds up suspense in this scene, and he does it all through the narrator's voice. The sentences are rushed, conveying the narrator's agitation. There are lots of questions, which suggest his uncertainty, and all those exclamation marks tell us just how stressed he is.

We also question the narrator's sanity here: "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!" Yeah, he's kind of going crazy—and we can see it in the prose, which is going crazy right along with him.