The theme of "The Tell-Tale Heart". Expressive means and stylistic devices in the story

There are three main themes of "The Tell Tale Heart":

• Crime and punishment (every person, who committed a crime can’t escape punishment);
• Insanity (the reader can understand that the main character is crazy, based on his behavior, speech and thoughts. However, he believed and believes that he is and was perfectly sane. He thinks that it is normally to kill someone, because something makes you feel uncomfortable and irritates you); 
• Time (The narrator had been preparing for a murder for seven long nights. On the eighth night the old man heard that someone was in his room: “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.” Our life is measured in hours.

We can define many literary devices in this story. One of them are symbols.

• The old man’s eye. It is a symbol of narrator’s paranoia and insanity: “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! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture… Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold”. We also see the old man’s essence through this eye.  “…a pale blue eye, with a film over it” - it indicates a lack of visual clarity and reliability of the man. That’s why he did’t trust people and was afraid of surrounding world.
• The watch. The narrator several times mentioned a watch (“…there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a WATCH makes when enveloped in cotton” etc). A watch is a visual and auditory representation of time. Time symbolize the approach of death. The narrator, who literally controls the time of death for the old man, compares himself to a watch's minute hand.
• The Heartbeat. It symbolizes the narrator’s guilt. He thought that he heard the heartbeat of the old man. But he heard his own heart, subconsciously he understood what he had done.
• The bed and the bedroom. In such place as a bedroom we feel ourselves safe, because it’s our own place, where can’t be any threat for us. But Poe shows a bedroom as a place of murder and the bed – as a weapon. 

Poe uses a lot of repetitions: “…with what caution--with what foresight--with what dissimulation…“, “…how stealthily, stealthily…”, “slowly—very, very slowly”, “steadily, steadily”, “It grew louder--louder --louder!”, “They heard!--they suspected--they knew!”. It helps to intensify the situation, to make the atmosphere of the story more intensive and frightful. We are waiting what will be the next. Such repetitions help the reader understand the narrator's nervous state and his feelings.

We can see some examples of hyperbole, which help us to understand, that we are reading thoughts of a true madman: “I heard all  things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell” , “It took me an hour to place my whole head…”, “For a whole hour I did not move a muscle…”

Such metaphor as “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it” shows us, that the narrator was afraid the eye.  It is said, the vulture is an evil bird and associated with evil in literature. So, the narrator thought that it was the eye of Evil. “A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine”. This metaphor shows how cautious the narrator was in opening the door.

The personification of Death helps to develop mood: “because Death, in approaching him. had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim”.

There are some similes in this story: “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness …”, “a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider “, “a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton”, “still dark as midnight”. They emphasize the quality and the state of some things.

alliteration: "Hearken...how healthily, how..."

There is an example of amplification: “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.” The narrator try to convince us that he is not mad. He emphasizes the fact.

Another rhetorical device that can be found within the story is epithet “dreadfully nervous”. It names the important characteristic of the character.

Parenthesis is also found within this short story: “I undid the lantern-oh, so cautiously –cautiously (for the hinges creaked) –I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.” Here Poe uses the parenthesis to explain why the speaker undid the lantern so cautiously. “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” – Poe explains, why was so dark in the bedroom and gives some additional information about the old man.

We also can find some rhetorical questions: “Would a madman have been so wise as this?”, “Why would you say that I am mad”, “For what had I to fear?”. The answers are obvious. The narrator insists that he is sane, and doesn’t even suppose that he can be crazy.

Irony: The speaker keeps saying that he is not crazy but through his actions and speech we can make a conclusionthat he is. 

As we see, this story is really reach on stylistic devices.