Frantic forensic oratory: Poe's The 'Tell-Tale Heart'

'The Tell-Tale Heart', while usually read as a confession, can be seen more accurately as a defense--a specimen of forensic oratory. The narrator empl oys four of the six parts of a classical speech. His exordium (introduction ) attempts to condition the audience through praeparatio and a friendly con cession (paromologia) as part of his ethical appeal (eunoia). The second pa rt, the narratio (statement of the ase), features the defendant's explanati on of the events and their causes through expeditio, aetiologia, and necess um. He skips the third part of the classical speech (divisio) but combines the traditional fourth and fifth parts (confirmatio, refutatio), and a cent ral device of this section is paradiastole, the narrator's revaluation of v alues--a sure sign of his schizophrenic split between thought and feeling, Poe presents a fascination but pathetic spectacle, a 'jarring collocation', insanity employing principally the Aristotelian rhetorical appeal to logos (reason) within a classical framework.