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In the story "The Tell-Tale Heart," what is an example of onomatopoeia?

Edgar Allan Poe's use of onomatopoeia is rather subtle in "The Tell-Tale Heart," but it is present in at least three places after the narrator has killed the old man whose eye had disturbed him so terribly.


After killing the old man and dismembering him, the narrator skillfully hides the body parts under the planks of the wooden floor in the old man's room. There are no traces of blood or obvious disturbances on the floor, and when the police come to follow up on a scream heard by a neighbor hours before, the narrator lets them in with confidence.


As the police begin their investigation, the narrator becomes increasingly nervous and swings a chair across the floor; he says, [he] "grated it upon the boards." The guttural sound of the g and the percussive t mimic the harsh sound.


As he begins to imagine the old man's heart "beating," the two syllables of the word with the emphasis on the first, with its dull sound of the b, sounds like a heartbeat.


When the heart begins to beat "louder—louder—louder," the rhythm of the repeated two syllables mimics the "lub dub" of a beating heart.

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