The Tell-Tale Hearts Essay

Tell-Tale Hearts

By Andrea Basile

        Lunatic, crazy, cold, evil, shallow, horrible and gruesome. These are the words that describe the man in the story “The Tell-Tale Hearts”. This crazy man killed an innocent old man, not because he hated him but because he despised the old man’s eye. I believe that no sane person would do such an act.

          This foul man is insane, because he murdered an innocent person because of the eye! The eye that drove this man crazy, a pale blue eye that made the narrators blood run cold. He thought he needed it gone forever, so he decided to take the life of the old man. Crazy is the only word that describes him. The main character thought about killing the old man day and night and once the thought was in his head, it wouldn’t leave.

Since the thought wouldn’t leave his mind, every night at precisely midnight, he would open the bedroom door of the old man; it took him hours to open that door! This is one reason why he’s insane, he takes an hour opening a door so he can watch the old man sleep. How crazy is that? Then, ever so slowly, he puts in a dark lantern into the room and opens it enough that a single ray of light falls on the vulture eye. For seven nights the eye was closed so the evil man could not kill the old man because it was not the old man the vexed him, but his eye. For this reason he is troubled, because he is very willing to kill this man for his eye.

Besides the main character watching his victim sleep for seven nights, he also got furious and cold when he gazed upon the eye. Imagine this…would you kill an old man just because his eye creeps you out? No, probably not, therefore this is another reason why he’s crazy. It’s also crazy to get MAD when you look at an eye! Who in the world gets upset when you see an eye? My point exactly. Finally on the seventh night of watching the old man sleep, the eye was open! The narrator grew furious gazing upon it, and therefore he now had the motive to kill. He killed the old man, and here’s the crazy part, he didn’t even feel a pang of sadness or regret. All he was thinking was “I’m amazing! I rid myself from the eye forever! Nobody will ever know I killed him!” This is another reason why he is crazy, by feeling nothing once the old man was dead.

          Besides not feeling regret about the old man’s death, the narrator heard many things…he had advanced hearing and when he was about to kill the old man he heard the clock of death. No sane person would hear     “The hearkening death watches in the wall”. He thought he could literally hear death coming for the old man. He also heard the heart beat of the old man. Listening to his heart beat the narrator grew mad also!

          If hearing death isn’t enough, he is also crazy because after he killed the aged man, he still heard the heart beat of the DEAD man’s heart! Isn’t this enough evidence that he is crazy? It is not possible to hear a dead man’s heart beat, therefore his mind is wacko! So as you can see, the main character in the horrifying story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, in my opinion, is insane.   

Am I Proud of my Country?

I am very proud of my country. I am astonished and amazed at the people who die for us, and for our freedom. There are so any good people in my country which makes me even more proud. However, a lot of people are troubled and commit crimes to innocent people which make me less proud of our country. But besides that I’m so glad that we got past the whole “natives being slaves” stage, because in some other countries they still make Native Americans slaves and America concurred that. I’m proud of my country on how it is runned, by letting the woman vote and by having everything be equal. I’m also proud of my country because it allows immigrants in with open arms. I am proud to be an American because it offers liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all, not just some. America is not perfect, but it is getting much better, and n that’s why I am proud of my country.

Snow White

SNOW WHITE:

·         The Evil Queen was jealous of snow white because of her beauty.

·         As a solution she planned to kill snow white with a poison apple.

·         She changed into a old woman and headed to Snow White’s house

·         On her way to deliver the poisoned apple to snow white, the Evil Queen got hungry.

CONCLUSION:                                                                  

The Evil Queen, fury running through her veins, stormed her way to the “beautiful” Snow Whites home. She carried the basket of red juicy poisonous apples in her tree-woven basket.  Running through the woods, passing beautiful landscape, deer’s and rabbits and flowers that haven’t bloomed, a light breeze filling the air, and little birds chirping happily, didn’t even cross her mind. It was like the world was speeding past and all her mind could think about was Snow White taking a bite of that poison filled apple….

Suddenly the urge of something to eat struck the Evil Queen.  She stopped in the middle of the woods, her hand on her belly. She slowly looked down at the basket of apples. So yummy, so juicy, so amazing….so hungry. The Evil Queen completely forgot that the apples were poisonous and she reached down, taking a plump apple from the basket. Bringing it up in front of her face, she saw her reflection looking back at her. Putting the apple to her mouth she took a big bite. As if the world was in slow motion, the apple fell from her hand making a soft thump when it hit the ground. She felt her veins filling with poison as her body started shutting down, her last words were murmured from her mouth before she collapsed down on the soft dirt that laid beneath her…”Opps”.

Essay Hook

Do people show the right sportsman ship in competitions? Or do they just like beating people, then rubbing it in their face?  I've seen both sides of the story. I am in swimming, a very competitive sport. At the end of each race, either if you win or lose,  you always say "good job" to the lanes next to you and you always shake or touch their hand. There are many sore losers in this sport also, if they lose they say nothing to the lanes next to them, and the get out crying or throwing there goggle across the pool. Some people just say to the person next to them "haha I beat you, but good job anyways" that’s not the right way to say you did good, or good job. But what we should look for is if people do sports for the fun and entertainment of it, or just to be rude and rub it in the losers faces. This is the million dollar question.

Beastly

Beastly

By Andrea Basile

            A curse transforms handsome but arrogant Kyle into everything he most despises...ugly people…ugly outside…a beast.  This is a contemporary retelling story of Beauty and the Beast. Kendra, a witch, puts a spell on Kyle that turns him into a creature, a creature that strikes fear into everyone he meets. The only way to reverse the spell is to get someone to love him for who he is on the inside, and seal it with true loves kiss.

            In this story the rising action is when Kyle technically has it all, the good looks, the girls, a rich father, and money. To add on to that list he also is elected for King at the Spring Fling Dance. This is the rising action because Kyle’s father isn’t very caring and Kyle doesn’t have a mother, so Kyle usually tries to fill his emptiness through winning elections and dating girls. Therefore when Kyle wins King everything seems to be better for him.

            Unfortunately, this lead to the climax. By winning King for the dance, Kyle would have to be present for the crown, therefore leading him to the dance. The dance that changes everything. Kendra, the witch, sees how evil Kyle is in the inside, by putting ugly people down below him and treating people differently on their looks. So as a punishment Kendra looks him straight in the eyes and says “Kyle, because you are so evil on the inside, people will see you for how you really are…a beast.” The spell settles over him during the night and wakes up with fur sprouting through every pore on his body. This is the climax because once he turns into a beast there’s no going back. The only way to reverse the spell is if someone loves him for who he really is. This climax affects Kyle because he’s not able to walk outside because people would probably call animal control, so he technically lives in his house.

            Kyle spending all his time in his house leads to the falling action. Since Kyle can’t speak or talk to anyone he can’t find his true love, so 2 years go by and he hasn’t even talked to a girl, therefore if Kyle doesn’t meet one soon he will stay a beast forever. His good looks will all be gone, he will live his life lonely, and he will never be able to go outside. This is what the falling action is.

            Finally resolution emerges. A drunk man breaks into Kyle’s home, Kyle gets super mad and is about to hurt the man, when the man desperately speaks “Don’t eat me! I will give you anything! Do you want drugs? Money? A girl? I can give you my daughter; do whatever you want to her! Just don’t kill me!” Kyle gets stopped when he hears that the man might give him his only daughter. “Alright” Kyle responds.”Bring your daughter to this house tomorrow morning, you may go free.” This is the resolution because since the man came to the house and offered his daughter, in the end Kyle and Lina, the daughter of the man, fall in love, breaking Kyle’s spell with true loves kiss.

           

           

Beastly

Beastly

          What would you do if you turned into a beast? This is exactly what happens to Kyle Kingsburey, the most popular and handsome guy in school. The beautifully written book Beastly by Alex Flinn, teaches you that inner beauty is much more important than outer beauty.

          “The truth is…only pretty people win! The rest of the world doesn’t matter!” This is exactly what Kyle says to the school, when elected for King at a spring dance. Kyle believes the world revolves around him and his drop dead good looks, he doesn’t dare speak to “uglyies”, as he calls them. We think that Kyle is much worse than us, and he is a little bit, but let’s say a popular, good looking kid walks in the room…would you treat him any different than a non-popular kid with no good looks? This is the million dollar question.

          We look at people from the outside, it’s just our nature. But what’s really important is the inside. Many people are nice, mature and amazing on the inside but we pass over them because we only see the outer part. Well Kyle, since he’s so horrible inside, gets turned into a beast. Kyle gets taught a lesson on how people see him for his true self. The only way to break his curse is if someone can see something in him…if someone can love him even though he’s horrible looking. Eventually Kyle became a different person. He became good, sincere, gentle, thoughtful, romantic and caring. And that brought him Lindy. We need to be like Lindy. She is the one that saw something in Kyle, that saw he was a good person, even though he was a beast, she loved him. Lindy is the perfect example of showing true beautiful captivating love because she just loved him from the inside. To her it didn’t matter what he looked like. And that’s powerful real love.

          As you can see the world thinks that life is a beauty pageant that you need to be beautiful or else people will treat you differently. What people don’t know is outer beauty doesn’t last forever…it fades during the years. What stays is inner beauty. Anyone can fake the outside, by putting makeup on and changing their clothes. But that’s truly not what we need to look for in people.  We need to see the purity and good in the people we care most about, if you just see them from the outside…it’s a lie. That’s exactly what outer beauty is…a big lie, a cover up for how people really are. The story of “Beastly” by Alex Flinn is clearly a lesson on how inner beauty is much more important than outer beauty.