Madness In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Madness is a severe mental illness that creates dangerous or foolish behavior. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe portrays madness in the exquisite way of symbolizing a guilty conscience with the sound of a dead man’s heart beat. The symbolism used in this story allows the reader to believe that the narrator is on the bridge of insanity. The reliability of the narrator is erratic and untrustworthy. “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture — a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it feel upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” The narrator is obsessed with the old man’s pale, blue, vulture eye which ultimately leads to his insanity. This insanity eventually resulted in the murder of the old man. An eye with a blue veil covering it is usually caused by a medical condition, but in this case it is representing the narrators twisted viewpoint of the outside world. It shows the lack of reliability and rationality. It allows us to believe that all of the information we receive from this story comes from a warped, falsified mind. …show more content…
I knew that sound well too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart.” The narrator symbolizes the heart beat of the old man with a ticking watch, it is counting down the time leading up to his predestined death. On the eighth night that the narrator visited the old man’s bedroom he says that the beating of the heart increased his fury. He claims that the fury grew quicker and louder with every instant causing his desire for the heart to burst immediately. After the murder, the watch resurrected itself, haunting the narrator and agonizing him until he revealed the crime to the