The narrator insists from the
very beginning of the story that he is not insane. What characteristics does he
say prove his sanity? What characteristics suggest his madness instead?
From the very first sentence,
the narrator insists that he is not insane. He tries to prove his sanity in
multiple ways. He starts off with the fact that “the disease” had sharpened his
senses, especially his hearing. He says that he can hear all things in heaven,
and hell. Toward the second paragraph, he states “Madmen know nothing”,
implying that he isn't mad because he was able to come up with such an
elaborate scheme to kill the old man with the evil eye. The narrator boasts of
the caution in with he carried out his plan. He is so proud of how he hid his
true feelings, under false appearances by being extremely kind to the old man.
Toward the middle of the story, he mentions that he isn’t mad, but he suffers
from “over-acuteness of the senses”. This time, using this “power” to explain
the dull, low, quick sound of the old man’s heartbeat. A few paragraphs later,
the narrator reveals to us that he could not possibly be mad because he concealed
the body like a pro. He thought he was so clever, suffocating the old man, so
that there would be no blood. He thought himself brilliant when he buried him
under the floorboards. The same characteristics that h uses to defend his
sanity, are the characteristics that prove him to be insane. I start with the
fact that his hearing was so great that he could hear heartbeats, something in
which our doctors use stethoscopes because they are unable to her a patient’s heartbeat,
even in a quiet examination room. The heartbeat that he hears at the end of the
story was not a heartbeat, but was, in fact, his conscience. It was something
that wasn’t actually there. It was this madness that led to his confession. The
narrator was crazy enough that he wanted to kill the old man with the “evil eye”.
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