MovieChat Forums > The Tell-Tale Heart Discussion > Edgar Marsh or Edgar Poe?

Edgar Marsh or Edgar Poe?

posted 14 years ago by mikecurse
1 reply | jump to latest

I was very confused when this guy's name turned out to be Edgar Marsh. Is not the first line of the film, spoken by the servant woman: "Mr. Poe! Mr. Poe! Are you alright Mr. Poe?"

It made sense to me, as his friend then called him Edgar, and Edgar did have the Poe haircut. I thought he was playing the author. I was even thinking hmm, so Poe worked as a librarian.

Then somewhere in the film I learn his name is Edgar Marsh. Well what the hell is the woman sayaing in the first line of the film? Sure sounds like "Mr. Poe" to me.

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up.

[–] warren_houghton 13 years ago

I believe the deal is that the beginning and ending of the movie are EAP, and the middle-- the main story-- is a semi-autobiographical character that EAP has written the story of his bad dream around.

Essentially, he has a bad dream wherein he kills his best friend, then wakes up and writes himself and his friend (and perhaps other friends or aquaintances) into a story based on his dream. There isn't much, by the way, in the movie that resembles his real short story of the same name, save for a character who is driven insane by guilt over a murder and who imagines in his insanity that he and others can hear the victim's still-beating heart. But EAP's stories are usually so short that a movie can't really be made without a lot of embellishment.