Conscience In The Tell Tale Heart

Conscience; An inner feeling which guides your actions and causes you to reflect upon them. [“What about somewhat wrong but yet not quite wrong and also that which is not quite right albeit still not being completely not right?” - Zar] This is what inevitably dooms the narrator in the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. The narrator in the story is plagued by the vulture-like eye of an old man he lives with(?). He is very calm and sure of his skill while he is plotting against the old man. He remains so when he kills the old man. Later, when the police arrive to investigate a anomalous sound reported by a neighbor, the narrator starts to hear an unsettling noise. He believes that it is the heartbeat of the old man …show more content…
Previous to the beginning of the story, the narrator was at peace. He had some sort of disease and therefore was always slightly uneasy in some way. This changes, however when he sees the old man’s eye which resembles the eye of a vulture. The eye causes him to be uneasy at all times and the text states, “Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold” (1). The text describes the eye on the first page by stating, “He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” According to Color Wheel Pro, “[blue] is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and …show more content…
The text states on the third page, “My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears; but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness -- until, at length, I found that the noise was NOT within my ears.” The noise that the character is actually hearing is his guilty conscience which he received after killing the old man. Although he didn’t think he felt guilty, his brain felt otherwise. He thought that because he was plagued so much by the vulture eye he would be relieved that it was now gone. A part of him was satisfied and relieved that he would no longer be terrorized, but the other part of him was thinking of what he had done. He thought of the felony he had committed and how it had resulted in the death of someone that he loved and had no quarrel with. The narrator proves this by claiming on the first page, “Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult.” This is what the narrator realizes at the end of the book, after he has killed the old man. He mainly thought of this because of the police that had arrived. The fact that the police had arrived to investigate the noise that had been reported (The shriek the old