The Tell-Tale Heart
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40 free The Tell-Tale Heart trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart runs to only a few pages, yet it is one of the most widely taught short stories in English. A nameless narrator talks us through a murder planned with obsessive care, and through the night it all came apart with the police sitting in the room. This quiz follows the story in order: the motive, the nights of spying, the killing, the hiding place, the police visit and the confession. It also covers the literary side that classes are asked about, including point of view, irony, genre and what critics make of the narrator, along with how the tale was first published and the films, cartoons and songs it has inspired. It is built for students revising for a class test, teachers who want a ready-made multiple-choice check with an answer key, and Poe readers who want to see how closely they were paying attention. Every answer comes with a short explanation tied to the text.
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Q 01In The Tell-Tale Heart, where does the narrator hide the old man's body after the murder?
Under the floorboards
Under the floorboards is where the remains go, and the narrator replaces the planks so neatly he boasts no human eye could spot anything wrong. Soon afterwards he is begging the police to tear them up.
Q 02In The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator says the old man's filmy eye resembles that of which bird?
A vulture
A vulture is the comparison, and the narrator's blood runs cold whenever that eye falls on him. He insists it was never the old man who vexed him, only the eye.
Q 03Which cartoon reworked The Tell-Tale Heart with a boss tormented by buried squeaky boots?
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants did it in the 1999 episode Squeaky Boots, with the squeaks standing in for the beating heart. Mr. Krabs cracks, confesses to stealing the boots, then fries and eats them.
Q 04Ironically, the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart describes his murder in detail to prove what?
His sanity
His sanity is the case he argues from the opening lines, pointing to how calmly and carefully he planned. The more precisely he explains himself, the more fully he admits to the killing.
Q 05How does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart describe his feelings for the old man he murders?
He loved him
He loved him, the narrator says, adding that the old man had never wronged or insulted him. He names neither object nor passion for the crime, only the eye.
Q 06Which emotion is usually read into the phantom heartbeat that ends The Tell-Tale Heart?
Guilt
Guilt is the usual reading: the officers suspect nothing, yet the narrator convinces himself they know everything. No one in the room accuses him except his own conscience.
Q 07On which animated sitcom does a girl swap a rival's Tell-Tale Heart diorama for a real cow's heart?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons did it in Lisa's Rival, where a jealous Lisa sabotages new girl Allison's contest entry. Like Poe's narrator, Lisa cracks and fetches the real diorama from its hiding place.
Q 08Which sense does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart say his disease sharpened above all?
Hearing
Hearing is the sense he boasts about, claiming he caught all things in heaven and earth and many things in hell. That boast sets up the beating only he seems to notice.
Q 09Two years after The Tell-Tale Heart, which 'Nevermore' poem made Edgar Allan Poe famous?
The Raven
The Raven made Poe popular in his lifetime, though it brought him little money. Its speaker is tormented by a bird that keeps repeating a single word.
Q 10From which point of view is The Tell-Tale Heart told?
First person
First person puts readers inside the killer's head with no outside view to test his story against. Poe never gives the narrator a name, a job or even a stated gender.
Q 11In The Tell-Tale Heart, what does the narrator use to cast one thin ray on the sleeping old man?
A dark lantern
A dark lantern can be shut so that no light shines out, then opened a crack. The narrator undoes it ever so cautiously because its hinges creak.
Q 12In The Tell-Tale Heart, who alerts the police after the old man's single shriek in the night?
A neighbor
A neighbor reports the shriek, the very thing the narrator feared when he rushed in to silence the pounding heart. Three officers knock before dawn.
Q 13On which night of spying does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart finally kill the old man?
The eighth
Q 21What single word does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart shriek at the officers as he confesses?
Villains!
"Villains!" he shrieks, sure the smiling officers have known all along and are only toying with him. He orders them to dissemble no more and admits the deed.
Q 22Which exclamation is the very first word of The Tell-Tale Heart, a reply to an unseen listener?
True!
"True!" opens the story as if answering an accusation readers never get to see. Critics read it as both an admission of the crime and a promise that the account can be trusted.
Q 23Which motive does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart dismiss, saying he had no desire for it?
His gold
His gold held no appeal, the narrator says, so greed is out. With insult and injury ruled out too, the only thing left for him to blame is the eye.
The eighth night is the one, after seven nights of finding the eye shut. This time the old man wakes, the eye is wide open, and the narrator's fury takes over.
Q 14At what hour does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart creep to the old man's door each night?
At midnight
At midnight he turns the latch, then takes a full hour just to ease his head through the gap. He holds up that slowness as proof of how wisely he worked.
Q 15In The Tell-Tale Heart, what does the narrator pull over the old man to kill him?
The heavy bed
The heavy bed does it: he drags the old man down and hauls it on top of him. Then he smiles while the muffled heart beats on for many minutes.
Q 16What does the old man in The Tell-Tale Heart cry out when a noise startles him on the fatal night?
Who's there?
"Who's there?" gets no answer: the narrator stands frozen for a whole hour while the old man sits up waiting. In all that time the old man never lies back down.
Q 17How does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart explain the night-time shriek to the visiting police?
His own cry in a dream
His own cry in a dream is the story he gives, and the officers accept it. He is so sure of himself that he tells them to search the house, and search it well.
Q 18Where does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart tell the police the missing old man has gone?
Away in the country
Away in the country is his lie, backed up by showing the officers the old man's treasures, secure and undisturbed. He leads them through the whole house himself.
Q 19As police chat in The Tell-Tale Heart, what does the narrator first think the rising noise is?
A ringing in his ears
A ringing in his ears is his first guess, along with a headache, so he talks faster and louder to drown it out. Then he decides the noise is not inside his head at all.
Q 20To what does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart twice compare the low, dull beating?
A watch wrapped in cotton
A watch wrapped in cotton is his image both times: once for the living heart, later for the sound that rises while the police sit chatting. The echo ties the two scenes together.
Q 24How does the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart claim he treated the old man in his final days?
Kinder than ever
Kinder than ever, he boasts, greeting the old man each morning in a hearty tone and asking how he passed the night. The warmth is part of the cunning he is so proud of.
Q 25Which kind of narrator do critics call the speaker of The Tell-Tale Heart?
Unreliable
Unreliable is the label: readers learn to trust the cracks in his account more than his own boasts. Critics see monomania where he sees skill.
Q 26The Tell-Tale Heart is often called a classic of which genre?
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction is its home: like many characters in the genre, the narrator lets his nerves dictate his nature. Its horrors unfold in an old house at the dead hour of the night.
Q 27The Tell-Tale Heart opens with a conversation already under way: which Latin term names that device?
In medias res
In medias res means into the middle of things, and readers never learn who is being addressed. Guesses include a judge, a prison warden, a reporter and a doctor.
Q 28Which horror novelist wrote The Old Dude's Ticker, a slangy 1970s retelling of The Tell-Tale Heart?
Stephen King
Stephen King has called his version a crazed revisionist telling of Poe's tale. At other times he has described it as satire, pastiche and affectionate homage.
Q 29In The Tell-Tale Heart, what color is the old man's film-covered eye that so torments the narrator?
Pale blue
Pale blue is how he first describes it, and on the fatal night he sees it as a dull blue under a hideous veil. The sight, he says, chills the very marrow in his bones.
Q 30In which city, his home from 1838 to 1844, did Edgar Allan Poe write The Tell-Tale Heart?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia was Poe's home for about six years, the stretch that also produced The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Gold-Bug. Only one of his homes there still stands.