The lion is sleeping in the center of the forest when a mouse accidentally runs over his paw. When the lion feels the mouse on his paw he wakes up and threatens to eat it....The mouse then begs for his life promising that if the lion frees him he would repay the favor one day.
A lion is asleep in the middle of the jungle when suddenly a mouse runs over his paw by accident. The lion wakes up as he feels the mouse on his foot and threatens to eat the mouse. The mouse begs for his life, saying that if the lion frees him, the mouse will return the favor one day. The lion laughs at the idea that the mouse will manage to do something for him but decides to let him go. Time passes, the mouse hears the lion roaring in the jungle. The mouse goes to see what has happened and finds the lion trapped in a net. The mouse sets to work chewing through the net and eventually free the lion.
Poe uses his words economically in the “Tell-Tale Heart”—it is one of his shortest stories—to provide a study of paranoia and mental deterioration. Poe strips the story of excess detail as a way to heighten the murderer’s obsession with specific and unadorned entities: the old man’s eye, the heartbeat, and his own claim to sanity.
