In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator is haunted by an old man’s blue eye, so he decides to murder the man and rid himself of it. He takes great care in watching the old man, cautiously waiting for the right moment, until he finally carries out the act. The police are called to the house by a neighbor, and the narrator acts as a friendly host to them, having hidden the man’s body under the floor so it cannot be found. All is well until the man begins to hear a low, soft thumping noise—the beating of the old man’s dead heart—which torments him until he frantically, violently confesses the murder to the police. Poe uses the crazed, conniving mind of the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” as well as the symbols
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The audience knows that he is partially insane because of how he keeps insisting throughout the entire story that he is not mad; however, he cannot escape feeling guilty because of this. Additionally, the old man’s eye haunts the narrator because it is acts as a mirror for his own shortcomings. The man is blind in that eye, and the protagonist has a handicap in the mind; thus, the disabilities parallel each other. The narrator cannot handle the old man’s eye because it only reminds him of his illness—even if he does not realize that this is the reason for his otherwise irrational hatred of the man and his blue eye. After the deed is done and the old man is dead, the central character is sure that he has gotten away with his crime until he hears the dead man’s heart beating. The heart represents the man’s guilt for what he had done—though he felt no regret after committing the crime, his guilt caught up to him later. It could not reach him any other way, so his own conscience created the thumping heart, forcing him to confess his crime to the police. Poe uses this story to show that a person must face their guilt sooner or later, and that no one, not even a demented, obsessed character like Poe’s narrator, can escape judgment. One’s conscience will do whatever it takes to make sure that one feels guilt for the things one has done, even if that means taking the form of a dead man’s heart in order to reach the guilty man and bring him to
The audience knows that he is partially insane because of how he keeps insisting throughout the entire story that he is not mad; however, he cannot escape feeling guilty because of this. Additionally, the old man’s eye haunts the narrator because it is acts as a mirror for his own shortcomings. The man is blind in that eye, and the protagonist has a handicap in the mind; thus, the disabilities parallel each other. The narrator cannot handle the old man’s eye because it only reminds him of his illness—even if he does not realize that this is the reason for his otherwise irrational hatred of the man and his blue eye. After the deed is done and the old man is dead, the central character is sure that he has gotten away with his crime until he hears the dead man’s heart beating. The heart represents the man’s guilt for what he had done—though he felt no regret after committing the crime, his guilt caught up to him later. It could not reach him any other way, so his own conscience created the thumping heart, forcing him to confess his crime to the police. Poe uses this story to show that a person must face their guilt sooner or later, and that no one, not even a demented, obsessed character like Poe’s narrator, can escape judgment. One’s conscience will do whatever it takes to make sure that one feels guilt for the things one has done, even if that means taking the form of a dead man’s heart in order to reach the guilty man and bring him to