The clock
When the narrator is talking about the desirability of the perverse, he describes a clock striking before the perverse act is committed: "the clock strikes, and is the knell of our welfare." Here, the clock represents the inevitability of the action.
The candle
The narrator states that he used a candle to kill his victim, and was inspired by reading French memoirs. In one account, he read about a woman who was almost killed by a candle that had been accidentally poisoned. Inspired by this, the narrator uses a poisoned candle to kill his victim and avoid detection.
The brink of the precipice
The narrator describes the moment he commits an act of "perverseness" which is later identified as murder. He explores his feelings in the following passage: "We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss." At first, this feeling feels dangerous, and one shrinks from the danger and feels "dizzy". Poe then describes the fall as being a "rushing annihilation". The reference to "falling" may also be a biblical reference to the fall of man.
Imprisonment
After a long exposition on the nature of perverseness, the narrator finally gives some detail about himself, saying: "that I may assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the condemned." The fetters and the cell represent the narrator's imprisonment, which is revealed to the reader towards the end of the short story. At the end of the story, the narrator describes his confession, which took place during a fit of madness. He says that the "long-imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul," which again uses the imagery of imprisonment.
