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The Tell-Tale Heart Drawing Ideas

One symbol, scene or project layout from the story per press, most with a paragraph number.

The Tell-Tale Heart Drawing Ideas

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  1. Window shutters fastened tight from the inside"The shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers" (par. 4), so the room is black as pitch.

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Symbols 12

  • A bell tower striking four in the dark "It was four o'clock" and "still dark as midnight" when the bell sounded the hour (par. 14).
  • A chest of treasures left untouched "For his gold I had no desire" (par. 2). He later shows the officers "his treasures, secure" (par. 15).
  • A dark lantern with its shutter closed "A dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out" (par. 3). A lamp with a sliding shutter.
  • A pale blue eye with a film over it The narrator calls it "a pale blue eye, with a film over it" (par. 2). One eye and no face.
  • A pocket watch wrapped in cotton The heartbeat sounds "such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton" (par. 10). A dial under soft folds.
  • A tiny beetle ticking inside a wooden wall He lies "hearkening to the death watches in the wall" (par. 6): beetles that tick in old timber.
  • A vulture's head in profile with one pale eye "He had the eye of a vulture" (par. 2). No bird is in the story; the comparison is the narrator's.
  • A watch dial whose minute hand has barely moved "A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine" (par. 4). Two faint positions of one hand.
  • One thin ray of light, fine as a spider's thread "A single dim ray, like the thread of the spider" (par. 8). One ruled line across a black page.
  • Rings of sound rising through shut floorboards "The noise steadily increased" (par. 17). Wider and wider rings from one spot; the boards stay shut.
  • Wind in a chimney, a mouse and a cricket in three small frames What the old man tells himself: wind, "a mouse crossing the floor", a cricket's "single chirp" (par. 7).
  • Window shutters fastened tight from the inside "The shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers" (par. 4), so the room is black as pitch.

Scenes in order 13

  • A chair scraped hard across floorboards "I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards" (par. 17).
  • A cheerful good morning at a bedroom door Each day he greets the old man "in a hearty tone" and asks how he passed the night (par. 3). Full daylight.
  • A finger pointing down at a shut floor His last words: "tear up the planks!" (par. 18). The story ends there, with the boards still down.
  • A hand turning a door latch at midnight "About midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it" (par. 3). The hand and the latch fill the page.
  • A head eased through a door left ajar "It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening" (par. 3). Show the gap, not the room.
  • A lantern ray landing on one wide-open eye The eye is "wide, wide open" (par. 9); he sees "nothing else of the old man's face". Light the eye only.
  • A neighbor's lit window across a dark street He fears the sound "would be heard by a neighbour" (par. 11). A neighbor does report a shriek (par. 14).
  • A thumb slipping on a lantern's tin catch "My thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed" (par. 5). Draw the thumb.
  • An old man sitting up in bed, listening in the dark He is "still sitting up in the bed listening" while the narrator holds still "for a whole hour" (par. 6).
  • Four chairs in a bedroom, one set on a certain spot He brings chairs in and sets "my own seat upon the very spot" (par. 15). The chair marks it; nothing else does.
  • Smiling officers chatting while one man paces "Still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled" (par. 17). Three calm seated shapes and one blur.
  • Three floor planks pressed neatly back in place He "replaced the boards so cleverly" that no eye "could have detected any thing wrong" (par. 13).
  • Three officers on a doorstep at four in the morning "There entered three men" who introduce themselves "as officers of the police" (par. 14). Hats and lamps.

The narrator 12

  • A blank name tag pinned to a coat The story never gives the narrator a name, or the old man one. Leave the tag empty.
  • A calm face with one wild eye He promises to tell it "calmly" (par. 1). Draw both halves of that promise in one face.
  • A face lit from one side, asking the reader a question His first question is to us: "but why will you say that I am mad?" (par. 1). He looks out of the page.
  • A figure stifling a chuckle behind a door "I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me" (par. 4). One hand over the mouth.
  • A host's welcoming smile at four in the morning "I smiled" and "I bade the gentlemen welcome" (par. 15). A candle in one hand, the door wide.
  • A man with his ear pressed to a wall at night He has listened like this before, "night after night" (par. 6). A nightshirt, a candle stub, a bare wall.
  • A small man casting a shadow that fills the wall The room is "black as pitch with the thick darkness" (par. 4). One lantern throws him up the wall.
  • A track of footprints pacing back and forth "I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides" (par. 17). One short line, walked many times.
  • An enormous ear on an ordinary head "Above all was the sense of hearing acute" (par. 1). The whole story turns on what he hears.
  • Hands pressed over both ears "My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears" (par. 16). Elbows out, eyes shut.
  • The same face three times, paler in each "I felt myself getting pale" (par. 16). In the next paragraph he is paler still. Shade less each time.
  • Speech bubbles crowding out of one mouth "I talked more quickly" (par. 17). Bigger and bigger bubbles; they need no words.

Project layouts 12

  • A book cover with a heart shape hidden in the title lettering Make the heart a letter shape, not an organ: the inside of the A, or the dot of an i.
  • A cut-paper scene in black with one pale blue shape Black paper for a room "as black as pitch" (par. 4). The only color on the sheet is the eye.
  • A floor plan of the old house with one chair marked "I took my visitors all over the house" (par. 15). The street door and the chamber are in the text; the rest is yours.
  • A mood line from calm to panic across the page Start at "how calmly I can tell you the whole story" (par. 1). End at the shriek of par. 18.
  • A one-page poster with a border of floorboards Planks around the edge, the eye or the lantern in the middle. The story first appeared in 1843.
  • A six-panel comic of the eighth night Door, lantern, "Who's there?", the long wait, the ray, the open eye (pars. 4 to 9). Stop there.
  • A sound chart that climbs from a flat line to spikes Par. 17 says three times that "the noise steadily increased". Plot it from left to right.
  • A storyboard of eight small night frames Seven frames nearly alike, the eye "always closed" (par. 3). The eighth breaks the pattern.
  • A symbol chart in four boxes: eye, lantern, watch, bell One box each, with the paragraph where it first appears: eye 2, lantern 3, watch 4, bell 14.
  • A two-column poster: what he says about himself, what he does His proof of a sound mind is his care: "would a madman have been so wise as this?" (par. 3).
  • One line lettered in a shaking hand "louder! louder! louder!" (par. 17). Let each word grow and wobble more than the last.
  • Two speech panels: the first line and the last line It opens "very, very dreadfully nervous" (par. 1) and ends "the beating of his hideous heart!" (par. 18).

How it works

These Tell-Tale Heart drawing ideas keep to what the story's own words show: the pale blue eye, the dark lantern, the watch wrapped in cotton, the bell striking four.

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Four groups for one assignment

Symbols are single objects, down to a beetle ticking inside a wall. Scenes in order runs from the latch turned at midnight to the last line. The narrator is about the man who tells it: his hearing, his smile, his pacing. Project layouts are whole pieces of work, such as a poster, a book cover or a six-panel comic.

What stays under the floor

The sound is the subject, so the pictures stay above the boards: rings rising through shut planks, a chair set on one spot, a finger pointing down. The heart appears as a shape in lettering. Paragraph numbers count from the first line of Edgar Allan Poe's text.

  • Work in black with one pale blue. The story gives the eye its color twice.
  • Show sound with line: thin rings for the watch, heavy rings by the last paragraph.

Questions and answers

What can I draw for The Tell-Tale Heart?

Start with one object: shutters fastened tight, a watch dial whose minute hand has barely moved, rings of sound rising through shut floorboards. For a bigger project, draw a poster with a border of floorboards or a six-panel comic of the eighth night.

What are the symbols in The Tell-Tale Heart?

The eye, which the narrator calls the eye of a vulture; the dark lantern and its single ray; the watch, which is how he describes the heartbeat; the heartbeat itself; and the bell that sounds four o'clock as the police knock.

What does the eye look like in The Tell-Tale Heart?

The narrator calls it a pale blue eye with a film over it, and later a dull blue with a veil over it. He compares it to a vulture's. Nothing else about the old man's face is described.

When was The Tell-Tale Heart written?

It first appeared in January 1843 in a magazine called The Pioneer. It is by Edgar Allan Poe and is told by a narrator who is never named.

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