A DESCRIPTIVE QUALITATIVE STUDY OF CHARACTERIZATION IN EDGAR ALLAN POE’S “THE TELL-TALE HEART”

This study examines characterization in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” by focusing on how the narrator, the old man, and the policemen are constructed through direct and indirect characterization. The study also explains how these character constructions shape readers’ responses to madness, guilt, ethical judgment, and gothic atmosphere. A descriptive qualitative method was applied because the data were textual rather than numerical. The data consisted of words, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs taken from Poe’s short story. The data were collected through repeated close reading, excerpt marking, and classification in a characterization analysis sheet. The findings show that Poe’s characterization is dominated by indirect presentation. The narrator is constructed as hypersensitive, obsessive, calculating, anxious, guilty, and increasingly unstable. The old man is characterized as innocent, weak, fearful, and vulnerable, while the policemen are portrayed as calm, professional, and authoritative representatives of social order. These contrasting profiles create moral asymmetry between victim and murderer, intensify the narrator’s psychological collapse, and strengthen the story’s gothic effect. The study concludes that systematic characterization coding can clarify how textual signals guide literary interpretation and can be adapted for teaching characterization in literary classrooms.