nswered their questions. However, the narrator soon wished them to be gone. "...I felt myself getting pale....My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears....The ringing became more distinct; I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling; but it continued...until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears....It was a low, dull, quick sound--much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton." The narrator gasped for breath, and spoke "...more quickly--more vehemently." The sound steadily increased; yet the officers made no notice. The narrator "...arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor...with heavy strides....Oh, what could I do? I foamed--I raved--I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased." Was it possible that the officers did not hear the sound ? "No, no! They heard!--they suspected!--they knew!--they were making a mockery of my horror!....I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die!" All the while the sound grew "louder! louder! louder! louder!" "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!--tear up the planks!--here, here!--it is the beating of his hideous heart!" SettingThe story covers a period of approximately eight days with most of the important action occurring each night around midnight. The location is the home of an elderly man in which the narrator has become a caretaker. CharactersThis story contains a nameless narrator, an old man and the police who enter near the end of the story after the mention, that they were called by a neighbor whose suspicions had been aroused upon hearing a scream in the night. The protagonist or narrator becomes the true focus of the tale. This narrator may be male or female because Poe uses only "I" and "me" in reference to ...
