Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

In the story “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator kills an old man over his eye, he is a paranoid and guilty murderer. The story follows the tale of a crazed Killer, as he plots the demise of the old man he lives with. He is mentally and physically ill, and cannot seem to tell the difference between the ‘real’ and the ‘unreal’ aspect of the story. Driven by obsession, and the constant denial of being a ‘madman’, the character proves to be a perverse, calculating and attentive character whose morals are not in the right place. In the opening of the story he states that he is nervous, “very dreadfully nervous”, but he is not mad. He goes on to say how the idea to kill the old man first enters his brain. The motivation behind …show more content…
This behavior is a bit odd, and raises a red flag that something is mentally wrong with the narrator. Still, he sees no issue with his actions. Actually, he boasts about how well he was able to carry out his crime, and considers himself wise. “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep…Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this?” He thinks he is being kind to the old man by not disturbing his sleep, however the narrator is definitely disturbed himself.
In addition to being disturbed, the narrator is also very narcissistic. “I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph,” says the narrator feeling as though he has won. He thinks since he has made it to the eighth night without being caught he has succeeded. He expresses a senses of joy and even arrogance. “To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea.” He finds it funny that the man does not know what is going on or about to take …show more content…
The madman then takes up three planks from the floor in the bedroom and places the body parts inside. He boasts once again about how “clever” he is, “I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected anything wrong.” A little bit after replacing the boards the man hears a knock on the door. It is the police. A neighbor called the police because they had heard the old man shriek and are suspicious of foul play.
The madman welcomes them into the house, gives them a tour of the home and being the arrogant and narcissistic man he is, he even leads them to the bedroom where he just killed the old man and put his body parts in the floor. However, while in the rooms the man’s guilt begins to set in and he thinks he hears the old man’s heart beat. Proving himself to be insane once again. How can he be hearing the man’s heart beat when he just killed him and dismembered his head, arms, and body? Paranoid that the officers will hear the heartbeat he confesses to the crime and tells the officers to rip up the floor