"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843.

It
follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a
"vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by
cutting it into pieces and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt
manifests itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating under the
floorboards .

It is unclear what relationship, if any, the old man and his murderer share. It has been
suggested that the old man is a father figure or, perhaps, that his vulture eye represents
some sort of veiled secret. The ambiguity and lack of details about the two main
characters stand in stark contrast to the specific plot details leading up to the murder.

THE TELL TALE HEART: An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing the
reader and claiming that he is nervous but not mad. He says that he is going to tell a story
in which he will defend his sanity yet confess to having killed an old man. His motivation
was neither passion nor desire for money, but rather a fear of the man’s pale blue eye.
Again, he insists that he is not crazy because his cool and measured actions, though
criminal, are not those of a madman. Every night, he went to the old man’s apartment and
secretly observed the man sleeping. In the morning, he would behave as if everything
were normal. After a week of this activity, the narrator decides, somewhat randomly, that
the time is right actually to kill the old man.

When the narrator arrives late on the eighth night, though, the old man wakes up and cries
out. The narrator remains still, stalking the old man as he sits awake and frightened. The
narrator understands how frightened the old man is, having also experienced the lonely
terrors of the night. Soon, the narrator hears a dull pounding that he interprets as the old
man’s terrified heartbeat. Worried that a neighbor might hear the loud thumping, he attacks
and kills the old man. He then dismembers the body and hides the pieces below the
floorboards in the bedroom. He is careful not to leave even a drop of blood on the floor. As
he finishes his job, a clock strikes the hour of four. At the same time, the narrator hears a
knock at the street door. The police have arrived, having been called by a neighbor who
heard the old man shriek. The narrator is careful to be chatty and to appear normal. He
leads the officers all over the house without acting suspiciously. At the height of his
bravado, he even brings them into the old man’s bedroom to sit down and talk at the scene
of the crime. The policemen do not suspect a thing. The narrator is comfortable until he
starts to hear a low thumping sound. He recognizes the low sound as the heart of the old
man, pounding away beneath the floorboards. He panics, believing that the policemen
must also hear the sound and know his guilt. Driven mad by the idea that they are mocking
his agony with their pleasant chatter, he confesses to the crime and shrieks at the men to
rip up the floorboards.
In Nicholasa Mohr's "The English Lesson" a group of students go to Susan
Hamma's class to learn English in order to better their lives. During once of the classes,
Ms. Hamma's asks the student to talk about where they come from and what they want to
do after leaving her class. All the students, except Diego Torres, want to become
American citizens because they know they will become more successful in the United
States than in their own home country. However, Diego Torres thinks differently and has
no desire to become a citizen because he is Dominican and proud. Torres goes on to
argue that he is only in the United States to make money and will be going back to be
happy because he can live a simple life and simply.

One of the themes Mohr is addressing here is the views people have on immigration. This
is interesting because most people in this story really want to work and become successful
in this country so they can eventually give back. For example, all the students in Ms.
Hammas class wanted to be in her English class because they wanted to learn the
language in order to better their lives in America because they understand that they must
know the language to become successful. On the other hand, Diego Torres represents the
person who many Americans in today's society dislike because they are here taking
peoples jobs away and "using" the country in order to become successful elsewhere.

The above theme is controversial because many times all illegal aliens are stereotyped to
be taking away the jobs of American citizen's. By Mohr creating characters who represent
both sides she is trying to challenge the beliefs people have and prove that all immigrants
are not the same and that although some may have a different plan for themselves, many
are really in the United States to better their lives and stay in the country who allowed
them to do so.