The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe Analysis

📌Category: Books, Literature
📌Words: 1498
📌Pages: 6
📌Published: 25 May 2021

In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe the narrator is a psychotic murderer who kills the old man who lives with him. The narrative is told through the third-person point of view of the narrator who uses a very calm voice as if murdering the old man was a causal thing. When reading the story, the credibility of the narrator came into question when describing whether the events happened or were a part of his imagination. Throughout the story, the narrator was denying his action while having a sense of panic which made me question the trustworthiness of the events being told by the narrator. After completing the story, I am convinced that the narrator is insane. The narrator is unreliable due to how the story is being told. Being uneasy and paranoid are two mood swings experienced by the narrator, while also being confused about on how he feels and thinks.

In the story, the unnamed narrator is acting nervous while denying the allegation of him being insane. His senses are heightened throughout the story stating, "Above all was the sense of hearing acute". The narrator lives with and takes care of the old man. For some reason, the diseased eye of the old man becomes the narrator’s obsession. The narrator compares the old man’s Evil Eye to the eye of a vulture and decides to kill the old man due to being haunted by the Evil Eye. After a week of planning the murder, the narrator either suffocates or crushes the old using his heavy bed. The sound of the old man’s heartbeat can be heard by the narrator for many minutes. Dismembered body parts of the old man are filled into the bathtub, while the narrator hides the pieces underneath the floorboards.  However, the screams were heard by the neighbor and notified the three police officers who arrived at the house. While the police investigate, the composure of the narrator is trying to be maintained. Suddenly, the repetitive noise like the sound of a watch ticking can be heard by the narrator. The sound ranges from being soft to growing louder and louder. Only the narrator can hear the sound growing much louder. What is causing the noise to grow louder? Is it the paranoia of the narrator? Is it his conscience? Is the narrator experiencing hallucinations? Could it be a supernatural clue? Or could it most likely be the pounding heart of the narrator growing louder? "I admit the deed!--tear up the planks!--here, here!--it is the beating of his hideous heart!" screams the narrator who can no longer tolerate the terrible deed of murdering the old man. 

The insanity of the narrator makes him unreliable. Firstly, the narrator repeatedly says that he is sane. Why would the narrator need to prove his saneness? He refers to himself as being wise when he does something an insane person would do stating “True! – nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am but why will you say that I am mad? The saneness of the narrator makes him believe that he has powers, “…I felt the extent of the powers of my sagacity.” A problem with someone’s eye would not be a justified motivation to murder that individual. Compared to the narrator, a normal sane person would not be as paranoid. The narrator is extremely nervous due to him being in a state of madness, which is an anxiety and a common symptom of insanity. While the narrator made these remarks, he is insane even though he denies it. The rest of the story creates a frightening setting by the narrator’s denial of madness and insanity. 

The narrator’s unreliability is furthered stressing through him being uneasy and paranoid. Once the story begins the narrator talks about how paranoid he is by stating, “True! –nervous very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am…the disease had sharpened my senses not destroyed not dulled them…. Above all was the sense of hearing acute”. A person will pay more attention to their surrounding area when they are paranoid or uneasy. Due to the house being dark, the strongest sense of the narrator is his sense of hearing. Throughout the story, exclamation points are used to show the narrator’s excitement. At the end of the story, the use of punctuation points shows how the narrator’s consciousness is taking him hostage. While proud of his accomplishment, punctuation points show how the narrator is uneasy and paranoid about the situation. The narrator is quite proud of his plan being contrived, and how he is going to execute his plan. By making the old man feel secure, the narrator is playing the old man like a fiddle. When approaching the old man, he is careful in not making any noises. The paranoia and uneasiness of the narrator give him keen senses making him believe that he is being clever.

Lastly, yes, the narrator tells us that he killed the old man due to him having the “evil eye”, yet I question the possibility of there being another reason behind the murder. I can see how the narrator has a feeling of confusion toward the old man or the narrator does not the real reason show. The eye was never officially being stated as the narrator says, “I think it was his eye!” I find that the narrator to be a dark and mysterious character using the old man having an “evil eye” as a motive to murder the old man. While it seems that the narrator does not withhold any information from the audience, it does appear that he is attempting to protect his real feelings about the old man. At the end of the story, I can see how the narrator’s consciousness was confused with the beating of the old man’s heart. I look at this and can tell that the narrator did care about the old man. The narrator’s consciousness would not have bothered him if he did not care about the old man. 

In the end, the narrator tries to prove to the audience that he is not only sane but also justified with his action of killing the old man because the narrator despised the old man's "evil" eye. After reading the entire story I examined his plan for murdering the old man. On the eighth  night, the narrator murders the old man and dismembers his body parts, and stores his body parts underneath the floorboards. The narrator thinks he got away with the murder until three policemen show up at his door. He can feel the beating heart of the old man, which I believe is used as a demonstration of his conscience and ends up confessing his plan to the three policemen.

One conclusion I saw based on the outcome of the story was that the narrator is unreliable due to his insanity, paranoia, and confusion. The narrator did this to make me wonder and question the motives for killing the old man if he cared about him. I noticed the techniques used by the narrator such as describing the imagery and manipulating time to describe the themes of insanity and fear throughout the story. The themes of insanity and fear enhanced my experience and clarified the main ideas presented by the narrator, which gave me a better understanding of the events throughout the story and the message that is being conveyed. 

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe presents itself to be a psychological story describing the insanity of the narrator. The hyperactive valuably used by the narrator and how he repeatedly pleading “How, then, am I mad?" (74) and "but why will you say that I am mad?" only reinforce the idea of the narrator’s suspicion of not being mentally ill. Apart from his manic monologue, the proof of lunacy comes from the narrator’s creepy obsession with the Evil Eye of the old man. What quality of the old man’s eye causes the narrator to be obsessed with it. 

"A pale blue eye, with a film over it" gives the description of the eye suggesting a common cataract hardly giving the narrator a reason for killing the old man. 

The internal and external representing the mind of the narrator and the plan to murder the old man displays the terror aspect of the story. One noteworthy aspect of the story is the passage of time on when each event described by the narrator takes place. The events described by the narrator are unbearably slow or astonishingly fast. The aspects of repetition and rhythm such as the ticking and beating of the heart are emphasized throughout the story which contributes to the tension of the events being described.  

This horror story illustrates the relationship and the unfortunate demise of the old man and the narrator. The story is not just about how the narrator is a masterful portrait of madness but is used as an example of how guilt can make an already crazed man even crazier. The separation of the old man’s identity from his physical eye is illustrated by the narrator killing the old man. He can murder the old man while still maintaining his love for him since the narrator sees the eye as separate from the man. Murdering the old man is justified in the narrator’s mind, ,however, the narrator does not acknowledge that murdering him will end his life. By dismembering his victim’s body part, the humanity of the old man is further deprived by the narrator. After all the narrator states "I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell". The odds were true as he truly did.

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