Brief Summary Of The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

The Tell-Tale Heart
The “Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. It is actually a very short story being just over two thousand words. One of the reasons why it is short is because Poe eliminates detail and goes straight to the point. Poe is known as one of the craziest sadistic and morbid authors out there. As you may know Edgar Allen Poe has a lot of disturbing and horrifying stories. This story is just one of many. It was first published in 1843. There have even been many short films about the story. Most of these movies are around twenty minutes long and are both in cartoon and real life. Many people seem to believe this story is about guilt and shame. In this short story the narrator is trying to explain he is not insane. …show more content…
However, the most important setting in this story is not the house where the murder takes place, but within the mind of the narrator who is obsessed with the old man’s eye. The story takes place in what seems to be a large house in the city judging from the details when the narrator states, “I took my visitors all over the house, I let them search well, I led them into his chamber, I showed them his treasures.” This obviously makes it seem as if it is a big house. The story takes place in eight to nine days. The narrator states that it took him eight days to finally murder the old man, but he never states when exactly the policemen arrived to the house. It could have been that same day or until the next day. The narrator’s name and age are unknown. His psychological state is that he does not have many friends or family or could even be antisocial, because he never introduces anyone, but an old man. The story teller gave the impression that he was the housekeeper or a servant. We do not know the relationship between the old man and the narrator. What we do know is that they are living together in the same building. This …show more content…
He says he does not want any of his money, he has no personal problem with the old man, and the old man never made him put up with him in any way. The old man never wronged him. He never even insulted him. In fact, he states that he loves the old man. The reason he gives for killing the man is that vulture eye of his. He said that whenever the eye fell upon him his blood ran cold. Although some critics have suggested that the eye is the “evil eye” of superstition, which the narrator feels threatens him; there is no way to understand his motivation except to say the narrator must be mad. Still, the reader feels compelled to try to understand the method and meaning of the madness. Maybe the narrator thought about killing the old man, but was not actually going to go through with it. He could have only done it because he heard the old man’s heart beat and thought the neighbors would hear, therefore he felt the need to kill him so that he would not get into any type of trouble. And maybe it was not even the old man’s heart but his own heart. He could have thought he was listening to the man’s heart, but in reality it was just his own heart beat speeding up because he was nervous. This story has so many different possible causes to the murder of the old man, but no one will know for sure if it was really just the eye that made the narrator want to kill the innocent