The Antagonist Character’s Conflicted Traits in Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart

Abstract

Conflict, or complication, is a part of plot that plays an important role as a source of problem to be solved in a story. Apparently, since the conflict is mostly related to the main character as the central in the story, revealing the other character’s problem to emphasize the existing conflict is intriguing. This study aims to identify and investigate the conflicted nature of the antagonist character in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Descriptive, qualitative method is used to describe and narrate the analysis based on the data taken from the short story. The data is classified into three categories of the conflicted traits of the protagonist character. It is revealed that the protagonist character, the Old Man, has a conflict within himself and with the protagonist character, the Mad Man. Within himself, his conflict is related to his insecurities about his wealth and his health. His wealth may invite bad people, while his bad health prevents him from protecting himself. These conflicts also cause the Old Man complication with the Mad Man as they create misperceptions that end up with the terrible deed toward the Old Man.