The Theme Of Guilt In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Bishop Robert Smith once informed, “Guilt upon the conscience like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, growing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of metal.” The human heart is an extremely fragile thing. It can easily be broken or torn apart, just like iron can be easily worn away by rust. Adding on, there are many heartbreaks that exist in the world and guilt is one of them. The feeling of guilt will gnaw at the human heart until it fully overpowers it. In the short story The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the readers are introduced to a narrator with rowdy thoughts. For weeks the protagonist, narrator, treated an old man, with a vulture eye, with immense kindness to gain the …show more content…
Through that examination the reader is introduced to an understanding that the human heart cannot carry the weight of guiltiness. As the story begins the narrator has a gloomy distorted heart. The old man’s evil eye got to him and caused him to go dark. Later on, as the murder of the elderly man was in motion the narrator 's heart was filled with joy. He was relieved that he no longer had to be afraid. As the story came to an end, the conscience did a one-eighty on the narrator, causing him to go from relief to guilt in the matter of minutes. The internal conflict between the narrator and his heart led to the resolution in the short story. The guilt that the narrator felt overpowered all of his other thoughts, which made the narrator turn himself. Furthermore, proving that the human heart is too gentle to be burdened with guilt. In conclusion, never think that you are off the hook when you get away with a horrific action because the guilty conscience you acquired will forever haunt. After all, the heart is a vital organ and it is hard to live when you are diagnosed with a guilty