Unreliable Narration in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Abstract

This dissertation explores the literary technique of unreliable narration and its function within the genre of psychological horror, with a particular focus on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart”. It investigates how unreliable narration distorts the reader’s perception of truth, challenges narrative authority, and intensifies the experience of horror. The research is grounded in both rhetorical and cognitive approaches to narrative theory, drawing on key contributions from Wayne C. Booth, James Phelan, Ansgar Nünning, and Bruno Zerweck. The study begins by outlining major theoretical models, including Booth’s concept of the implied author and Phelan’s axes of unreliability, as well as Nünning’s and Zerweck’s cognitive frameworks, which emphasise the reader’s role in detecting unreliability. It then applies these theories in a detailed analysis of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, identifying the textual, psychological, and structural indicators of the narrator’s unreliability. By examining the intersections of madness, manipulation, and narrative form, the dissertation argues that both rhetorical and cognitive perspectives are essential to fully understand the story’s impact. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that unreliable narration in psychological horror does more than simply mislead the reader. It constructs a complex emotional and interpretive experience, where fear arises not only from events within the plot but from the unstable mind through which the story is filtered.