The Tell-Tale Heart Old Man

The narrator and the old man play key roles in how Poe creates fear and dread in his story “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The unreliable narrator’s words chill the reader and indicate that he is mad. “How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” (Poe 303). He uses evidence only he believes to be true by saying he isn’t mad because his murder was so perfect, so precisely. He truly believes he isn’t mad, even though to a sane person he sounds insane no matter what he says. His actions were very repetitive and so were his words, which really helps draw the reader into the suspense and tension the author purposely made for them. The narrator repeats actions and words, such as stalking the old man while …show more content…
The narrator starts off by being kind and gentle with the old man greeting him with a smile only to stalk him at night and creep into his bedroom plotting his death. Having the repeated actions build up his anger towards the aging man’s eye is what really sets the story into an edgy feeling. Even though he shares a smile during the day, he would never show the hatred in his eyes. “He would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.” (Poe 303). The narrator had tricked the old man into believing he was so kind and caring towards him, that he missed the darkness surrounding the narrator. It’s hard to see darkness when surrounded by light, just like it is hard to find light surrounded by darkness. While all the narrator saw was dark, the old man saw the light; so they both missed the others true form. The old man is oblivious to all that is going on around him and believes the narrator is caring. “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” (Poe 303) What the narrator says is true, he gained the old man’s trust …show more content…
The narrator does this by starting off with his disease, the disease that he claims helped him. “The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them.” (Poe 303). This madness he calls a disease has rearranged the narrator's way of thinking. His senses were sharpened opening up his mind to the sounds of heaven, earth, and hell. But this disease was no burden to him, to him it was more of a gift. The narrator thought of this disease as a gift granted to himself after seeing the vulture eye. It was this vulture eye that deceived the narrator into believing his actions, his plan to murder the old man were justified. Tension builds along with his madness in the story. The narrator is convinced he is sane.m“And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?” (Poe 305). The narrator began to believe he was in fact sane and not mad, even though he had dismembered an innocent man. He claims that it was this vulture eye’s fault. The vulture eye is to blame is what he subtly hints at. Admitting to be mad and having done something wrong may have been too hard on the narrator, but maybe he truly was mad and believed himself to be sane. The narrator gives evidence in an eerie way that he believes because he’s so calm and he was so precise in his “perfect” crime that he must be balanced. The dark setting and words