NOISE, SILENCE, AND SURVEILLANCE IN THE TELL TALE HEART!!!! WOOWWWY!

THIS IS A PAPER I WROTE FOR A CLASS ON LITERARY ACOUSTICS. MATT'S LAST POEM REMINDED ME OF IT SO I FIGURED I'D JUST TOSS IT ON HERE AND IF ANYONE IS DOWN FOR A SOMEWHAT LENGTHY READ THEN PLEASE DO.

Kyle Thacker
Eng 347
Professor Cappello
12/9/08

Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart”: Symphony of Silence and Noise

“True!” This exclamation by the narrator of “The Tell Tale Heart” starts the story (as well as the reader) and immediately draws one into conversation with the text. It seems as though the reader is stepping into a conversation that has already begun, arriving late to the exchange and being meet with a discussion in progress. It is like a musical piece that starts out on an offbeat, unsettling at first but it soon falls into the measured rhythm of the song. There is a strong presence of musicality in ”The Tell Tale Heart.” Most often, it is found in the construction of the text itself, as opposed to the presence of songs or the playing of instruments. The presentation of altering silence and noise creates a space for music to be embedded within the story. In Jacques Attali’s book Noise: The Political Economy of Music, he claims that “music is inscribed between noise and silence, in the space of the social codification it reveals” However, it is more likely that music is situated on a scale next to silence and noise, not simply existing in the space between. But rather, as an entity unto itself. Though, it is not separate from the two, as noted by Attali, there is a strong relationship between the three. That relationship stems from noise, silence, and music having elements of all three within each single unit. Most evident is the presence of silence and noise within music. I would like to explore this topic through out this paper, focusing on the musicality of the text and how silence and noise relate to music, and in turn how these relations affect surveillance.
The aforementioned start of the story, on an offbeat, in mid-conversation, creates a feeling of intrusiveness that isolates and identifies the reader as a witness to the tale, and when the narrator addresses the reader, asking, “Why will you say that I am mad?” (384), it further puts the reader into the position of a viewer. The narrator constructs this relation of roles (observer and observed) by asking to be surveyed by the reader. It is this surveillance imposed by the narrator that situates the story. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a story about surveillance, the careful watching and observing of a subject, and its relation to the interruption of this surveillance by the unexpected event, often times represented by an unexpected noise.
At the start of the story, the narrator asks the reader to “Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” (384) This request is made in an effort to remove any questions one may have about the sanity of the narrator. The first paragraph brings to my mind the feeling of being part of a medical team asked to address the sanity of a potential patient for a mental health hospital. In just the first paragraph the narrator talks of a disease that has sharpened his senses, noting that “[a]bove all was the sense of hearing acute.” The request by the narrator to be observed by the witness creates a dual-surveillance that operates within the story. There is the surveillance by the reader of the narrator, and the surveillance by the narrator of the “old man” in the story, who is his master. There is, however, a distinct difference between the two roles of surveilling. First, the reader is at a disadvantage and is only privy to the information given by the narrator. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the reader cannot have communicate with those in the story. It is a passive observation that cannot be broken. There is a gap between the reader and the story that cannot be crossed through communication; in a sense, there is silence that exists between reader and story and the reader becomes a sort of dumb witness, where one cannot speak and has no voice of their own. The reader can only be attentive and watchful to draw significant insights from the text. The reader must be able to draw answers from the text without the ability to ask questions to it. This gives significant weight to what is presented in the text, and how the text itself is presented. The text itself is where the musicality of the story lies
Bernard P. Dauenhauer writes about the polyvalence of silence in his book Silence: The Phenomenon and Its Ontological Significance. Dauenhauer approaches the subject of silence in a deconstructive manner, breaking down silence to show that it is not a singular occurrence but one that has various states that can function and perform different actions. One of the distinct functions of a silence that Dauenhaur describes is called “intervening silence.” Intervening silence is described as “that occurrence or sequence of occurrences of silence which punctuates both the words and phrases of a spoken sentence and the string of sentences which fit together in discourse” (6).
Dauenhauer further delineates intervening silence by proposing that it is made up of two components, both of which can perform two different operations, Dauenhauer says, “the punctuatuing effected by intervening silence functions both ‘melodically’ and ‘rhythmically’” (6). The numerous dashes in Poe’s story seem to be functioning in this rhythmic fashion, initiating a pause and enforcing a silence between two words, or what Dauenhauer refers to as “sound phrases.” The dashes control the rhythm of the story, giving more weight to the words they highlight. Dauenhauer writes on the effect of this type of rhythmic intervening silence in literature and music, saying:

Attention to the rhythmic function of intervening silence, however, refines the view of this way in which silence appears. When a story or a musical composition or a painting is taken as a totality, one finds that the occurrences of silence do not merely punctuate the sound phrases. These occurrences of silence are just as essential to the rhythm of the totality as are any of the sound phrases which make up the utterance.

There are no references to music or instruments in “The Tell-Tale Heart” as there are in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” yet the text itself is musical. The presentation of a musical piece requires a certain type of performance and evident in this story is a performance put on by the narrator. He is in control of the telling of this story much as the conductor is in control of an orchestra playing a specific piece of music. The narrator’s frequent use of dashes to construct the pace of the story is similar to the function of measures in sheet music to signify the right amount of beats to play in order to stay in tune with the correct tempo of the song. The dashes also function as a way to isolate the phrases within them, to identify each phrase within a dash as something distinct and important that should be noted separately from the phrase that precedes it. Daunhauer notes that these dashes create silences and pauses that function rhythmically.
Although it is important to note that these distinctions usually work in tandem with one another in order to create an emphasized sense of the point the narrator is trying to make. “I proceeded –with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work.” (384) This passage is a good example of the pacing set by the dashes as well as the isolating affect the dashes create. These separate statements, caution, foresight, dissimulation, are separately noted and shown importance by the dashes, yet they work together to relate the extreme vigilance that went into the performance of his actions. This is like the singular instruments of an orchestra that on their own play specific and separate notes, melodies, rhythms, yet they all work together to create a single song.
Another aspect of the musicality of the text is the presence of a repetition of the same word within a sentence, which is frequently used in the story and at first glance seems to have a similar function as the dash. The repetition of a word paces and controls the story as well as draws attention to the word. There is also a musical device that seems to be at play at these points of the story: refrain. The OED defines refrain as “a phrase or verse reoccurring at intervals.”
The narrator uses the term refrain to describe his own actions on two occasions within the story. The narrator says “But even yet I refrained and kept still,” then further down the page he reiterates, “I refrained and stood still” (387). These two quotes bookend the moments before the narrator murders the old man. In a sense these two phrases encapsulate those moments as a singular thing that stands out amongst the rest of the story.
The narrator does not take an active role during this passage but rather examines the situation and relates the tension, the feelings, and the emotion present in this moment. This passive role adopted by the narrator gives light to another definition for refraining, which seems to be the sense in which the narrator himself uses it. To refrain is to show restraint and to hold oneself back. In this passage the narrator refrains and “ke[eps] still.” He is motionless and takes no action and because of this he situates himself within the moment and stays there for a length of time. It can be said that the narrator is held by the moment. This ability to hold, and, to be held in and by a certain instance is the function found within the repetition of words in a sentence. The narrator illustrates this, “I moved it slowly –very, very slowly so that I might not disturb the old mans sleep” (385). These repetitions draw out the sentence so it literally takes longer to read through then it would without the repetition of words and the reader is forced to stay in the sentence for a longer duration, as well as examine the moment and the information relayed in the sentence more carefully. The sentence has the ability to hold and restrain the reader from moving on in the story. In this sense it is like the refrain of a song that extends the length of the song as well as creates a specific portion of the song, the refrain, also called a chorus, which deserves particular attention from the listener and is given significance as its own distinct part of the song.
Another point of the story reminiscent of a musical performance is towards the end of the story, when the pounding of the dead man’s heart grows increasingly louder, the narrator begins to panic slightly, “I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased” (389). The image presented here reminds me of an erratic orchestral conductor who has lost control of his symphony. The “violent gesticulations” like a graceful conductor suddenly crazed, flailing his arms and conducting baton above his head in order a regain control over a rogue orchestra playing there own selections.
The language of this sentence indicates music, identifying his voice as registering in a “high key.” The pitch of his voice here lends evidence to his nervous and increasingly agitated state. Even the word “trifle” has musical connotations as a “literary work, piece of music etc. light or trivial in style; a slight or facetious composition” (OED).
The world trifle also resembles the world trill when written out on the page. One could view the narrator as trilling in this instance, as trill is defined by the OED as “A tremulous high-pitched sound or succession of notes” the narrator is certainly putting on a performance of this sort in front of the police officers who came to question him.
This moment is also reminiscent of the scene in Annie Lanzillotto’s “How to Cook a Heart” where the trained singer is trilling to drown out the voice of the old woman singing in the market place to signify that she should leave. The narrator in this instance isn’t trying to drown out the sound of a worn voice but rather what he hears as the beating of the old mans heart. He is not attempting to usher out an old woman but rather the officers who have stayed longer then his dissimulation could endure.
These readings of music in the text of “The Tell-Tale Heart” would seem to indicate that music is not necessarily situated between silence and noise, but situated amongst it, as something that has elements of both occurrences within it. The silence of the dashes controls the rhythm and pace of the story, while the repetition of select words function like noise, unexpected and slightly obtrusive, the noise created by these repetitions arrests and holds the reader within the sentence, much like a loud noise would hold the hearer in the moment, making them suddenly hyper-conscious of their surroundings. How does this music function with surveillance? And how does silence and noise function with surveillance? In terms of the surveillance by the reader of the narrator it factors significantly. These musical elements are the factors that control and have the ability to manipulate or alter the actual telling of the tale by the narrator. They do not seem to necessarily distract the observer (reader) but the musical elements do have an ability to filter or corrupt the information being relayed to the reader. The surveillance here has been tampered with. But how do noise, silence and music effect the second surveillance being performed in the story, that by narrator of the old man?
As was mentioned before there are differences between the two performances of surveillance in this story. Another significant difference is the manner of surveillance. The reader was asked and encouraged to observe the narrator, however, the narrator is secretly performing his surveillance of the old man. This is a separate connotation for surveillance then the first. It is a connotation that performs the act of surveilling in order to silence. It is within this notion of surveillance that the presence of the word veil in surveillance and the pronunciation of veil (syllabically) when the word is spoken becomes a striking and important distinction. The narrator must perform this action stealthily, silently, and with out being detected. For the narrator it is just as important to not be heard as it is not to be seen. The narrator must stay concealed, to be veiled by his dissimilitude and patience.
In this sort of surveillance, silence is a necessity. Silence is a tool to be used, to be ever enveloped in silence, to be draped by it; the narrator is protected by silence. In Dauenhauer’s book he says that, “silence is itself an active performance. That is, silence is neither muteness nor mere absence of audible sound” (4). The narrator repeatedly conveys this notion, the active silence, as he chronicles how “stealthily” he would watch his master at night.

The narrator says
And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it –oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly –very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep (385).
Through out the story there is a strong relationship between darkness and silence and noise and light. These relations underline the ability that silence has to conceal and noise has to reveal. The saying, “to keep something in the dark” is a way to say to keep something secret. To “shed some light” on a subject is to explain and explore it further. Silence in this story functions with surveillance as a way to keep the narrator hidden, so that the old man of the story does not know the deed that is desired to be done by the narrator. It is always the unexpected noise that corrupts and sheds this veil of silence. When the old man is startled from sleep it is the noise of the narrator’s thumb slipping on the tin fastener of the lantern (the source of light) that causes the old man to jump and call out “Who’s there?” (386). It is this moment of the story that emphasizes another ability of noise during surveillance, other then the ability noise has to reveal. The unexpected noise causes the roles of surveillance to be reversed. Once the old man notes a foreign presence, he becomes the one who is surveilling. The narrator now has to be even more cautious, as he is being watched and listened for. The reader can see how the roles of surveillance are switched in the time after the noise is made “I kept quite still and said nothing. 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 dead watches in the wall” (386). This moment also exhibits an almost uncanny action of listening for silence. The narrator is not so much listening for sounds to tell him the position or state of the old man, but rather he is listening for the lack of sounds to tell him it is safe and he has gone back to sleep.
The whole performance by the narrator of this story has the sense of a song to it. There is the slow build up of the music, introducing you to theme and all the facts of the song (key, tempo, mood), as the narrator gets closer and closer to his master the tension tightens until the narrator is almost revealed by the sound of his lantern. After this, there is a lull in the song of the tell-tale heart, the narrator sits quiet, its is the breakdown that proceeds the crescendo of action as the narrator jumps into the room, smothering his master. As I was reading it I could almost here a sound track of orchestral music running right along with the story, like the accompaniment to the tale of Peter Rabbit, only much more sinister and dark.
The pacing and telling of this tale creates an atmosphere of music that greatly affects the reader. The performance put on by the narrator as conductor controls this story. The noise and silence found in “The Tell Tale Heart” certainly argues for the importance of each and the roles that they can play within the surveillance of a subject. The cautiousness exhibited by the narrator during his surveillance of his master is crafted so delicately, that anything he gained could be lost in an instance. The sound of the heartbeat itself is musical, referred to as a “tattoo,” which is a military tune that is played, calling a soldier to bed. The pounding heart of the old man is also described as a military drumbeat that calls the narrator into action. It would be interesting to find out what type of musical beat the narrator finds his own pulse gives off, what does his own heart beat call him to do?
The use of silence and noise by Poe creates a musicality to the text, a rhythm and pace that is often off-beat, a syncopated telling of a story. The way the story leaves off it is like a song that ends with a dissonant chord, leaving the piece unresolved. The silence that is the final punctuation of the story leaves the reader wondering. What happened to the narrator? From where is he telling this story? Jail? An insane asylum? Poe does not give in and tell us, he lets his song end on the bang of drum and fall quickly into silence.