What does the narrator insist he is not at the opening of the story?

What is the narrator fixated on?

What does the narrator do each night?

What does the narrator think the eye is?

How many nights does the narrator spy on the old man?

Gothic Literature

﻿I'm Miss Howell. Welcome to today's English lesson. All you will need is a pen and a piece of paper. So take a moment, clear yourself of any distractions and make sure that you have everything you need at hand for our learning today. Our lesson today will continue to look at "The Tell-Tale Heart" but in particular, we're going to focus on structure. Please write down your title, analysing structure in "The Tell-Tale Heart," pausing here to allow you to do that now. Now, please write down our keyword for the lesson, which is insanity, and a definition. Pause the video here to complete that now. In today's lesson, we will look at how to analyse structure. Structure, in its most basic form, is about how the texts fits together and how, as you move through a piece of writing, your understanding grows and develops as you gain more and more knowledge as you read. Think about it like a four-part jigsaw puzzle. So we have what happens first, then we need to consider how that fits with what happens next. And then how does the next piece of the puzzle, what happens then link and then finally, when we get that last piece of the puzzle. So when we look at the structure of the text, we can break it down into these constitute parts, thinking about how it all fits together because sometimes, we only truly understand a text at the end when we realise how everything works together. This is how a text has been structured. The first part of the text you read is like having the first piece of the puzzle. You need to say what you understand in this first piece, what you have learnt by having this first piece of information. The next part of the text is the next piece of the jigsaw. You need to show how your understanding of the story has grown now that you have two pieces of the puzzle. Think about what you now understand, or have learnt now, that you did not know before. Then, as you move through the text, you now have the third piece of the jigsaw. Again, you need to show you understand how your understanding of what you are reading has grown. Think about what you understand or have learnt now, that you did not know about before. Finally, you now have all the pieces to the puzzle. Now you understand the full big picture of what is going on. Once the final piece has been added, you need to show what you understand about the full text. We are now going to read our extract for today's lesson. The extract has been split into four sections. Those four different pieces of the jigsaw. So we have the first section, next, then and finally. On each slide, there are prompt questions to help you think about what is happening. I would like you to answer those questions on your lined paper and see if you can make sure that you're answering those in a full sentence. And see if you can support your answers with quotation from the text. You will also need a different coloured pen or a pencil to self-assess and check your progress. The text we're about to read contains reference to violence and death. For some people, this will be a sensitive topic. If that applies to you, you may want to do the rest of this lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support you. "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 has 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. Pause here to answer the question. So I opened it. You cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily, until, at length, a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and 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 not 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 now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. Pause here to answer the question. 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 solider 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 eye. 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 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. Pause here to answer the question. Yes, 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. Pause here to answer the question. Now, we will review your answers. Using your different coloured pen, edit, refine your response with the answers I'm going to take you through them on the slides. In particular, check to see whether you have supported your answers with quotations as I have done. If not, pause the video as and when you need to to allow yourself to take down this feedback. In answer to number one, at first, we learn that the narrator thinks that the old man has been "trying to comfort himself" by rationalising that the noise he heard could have been such as the "wind in the chimney." Number two. Then, the narrator thinks that the can hear "the beating of the old man's heart." He believes that he can hear it grow "quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant." This excites the narrator to "uncontrollable terror." thirdly, we now understand that the narrator is still fixated on "upon the vulture eye." Initially, this makes him feel "furious" and then it "chilled the very marrow in his bones," suggesting that he becomes very afraid of the eye. Then finally, at the end, we now understand that the narrator, due to his "uncontrollable terror," crushes the old man to death with his own bed as he "pulled the heavy bed over him." He ensures the old man is "stone, stone dead." Now we understand how the text fits together, we can add in some additional subject terminology and make our analysis of structure more advanced. Here are the structural techniques we are going to focus on today. I will talk you through what each to these techniques are and what they mean. If you need to, pause the video to take down these notes so that you will be able to easily refer back to them. We will be looking for these techniques in what we have just read later, so it might be a good idea to make a note of these. So firstly, we have character introduction. So this is what you learn about the characters with how the writer introduces you to them. Characters don't just have to be human characters, they could potentially be animals as well. Then, our second structural technique we're going to look at today is setting. So where as a reader are you placed? Inside, outside? And think about how this setting adds to the tone. And third structural technique is foreshadowing. So what does the writer hint at that could happen later in the text? Our fourth technique we're going to look at is shift. So this could be a shift in tone, focus, topic or location, which is also known as a spatial shift. So where does the writer focus your attention? What is the tone? And does this change as you move through the text? And if so, how? So thinking about where your attention is as reader and are you being moved throughout the text to focus on different things. Does the tone stay the same as you move to focus on different things or does it change? You need to be able to explain how that changes. And then our final technique we're going to focus on in this lesson is the repetition of an idea. So do any ideas repeat throughout the text? And you need to consider why might a writer want to emphasise that particular idea? But in a moment, you will reread the text and make a note of which structural features you can spot. When you make your note, I want you to include the following. So you need to pick out the structural device and use your correct subject terminology in identifying what structural technique the writer's used. You need to be very clear what you learn because of this structural device. And I would like you to use a quotation to support your idea. So as an example, this is what your notes should look like. So at first, the focus is on the old man and what the narrator believes he's thinking. So my structural technique is there in pink on the slide, focusing on the old man. The second bullet point, I've been very specific about what I learn. This suggests the old man is trying to reassure himself so as not to be afraid. And my quotation which supports this is it is only a mouse crossing the floor. So your task now is to reread this section of text and just as has been modelled to you in the example, you need to write down the structural feature you can spot and the techniques we have looked at today, what you learned because of that technique and a quotation to support your idea. Pause here to complete that now. Now complete the same task for the next section of text. Pause the video here to do that now. Now complete the same task for the third section of text. Pause here to complete that now. And then finally, this last section of text, pick out your structural technique, what you learned because of it and a quotation to support, pausing here to complete that now. Now, we will review your answers. So as we go through the answers, you could have had, please note down in a different colour, so you were able to see what you could do when you do the task independently and what you have learnt in today's lesson. So we have as a potential answer for the first section of text is foreshadowing, which is our structural technique because what we learn is that the old man will die later. And a quotation that supports that is "Death enveloped the victim." In the next section of text, the focus shifts to the old man's eye and because of this, it becomes clear the narrator feels angry at it and a quotation that supports is "the vulture eye, I grew furious as I gazed upon it." We also have, in this section of text, a focus shift from what he can see to what he can hear. And what I learn by focusing from these different sentences is that the narrator seams to have an obsession with his senses, which could imply his potential psychosis as an acute sense of hearing may suggest he's hallucinating. He's hearing something that does not exist outside his own mind. And a quotation that supports that is "there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound." Then in that third section of text, a structural technique that you could have spotted is the idea the narrator believing he can hear the heartbeat of the old man is repeated. And what I learn from this repetition is that the fixation of the narrator raises the tension for the reader as they anticipate when the narrator will violently react to the fright he feels. And a quotation that supports is "uncontrollable terror." finally, in that last section of text, hopefully you were able to stop another focus shift, this time to the narrator killing the old man. And what we learn from this shift to the murder is that the reader now learns the height of the narrator's insanity. That he would murder the old man in such a violent way. And a quotation that supports this is "stone, stone dead." Once you have edited your work with the feedback, we have reached the end of the lesson. Thank you for your focus and I hope you have enjoyed our learning today.

At what time does the narrator put his head into the old man's room?

What is different on the eighth night?

What does the narrator do when he knows the old man is awake?

What does the narrator reveal has frightened him in the past?

What does the old man make the narrator feel?

In this lesson, we will explore some structural features and begin to understand how to analyse structure in 'The Tell-Tale Heart'.  Then, we will end on a quiz exploring what you have learnt. 



Lesson overview:Analysing structure in The Tell-Tale Heart (Part 1)

Core Content

Content guidance

Supervision Level

Gothic Literature: