The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe

1. The narrator insists from the very beginning of the story that he is not insane. What characteristics does he say prove his sanity? What characteristcs suggest his madness instead? 

The narrator says, his disease sharpened his senses, not destroyed, or dull them. He says madmen know nothing. The way he planned to kill his father and the steps he took in doing so he thought no insane man could do such a thing. He also thought by cutting up the body and hiding it inside the floor that no mad man would think of something like that. The characteristics that proved his madness was the thought of killing his father, simply because he couldn't stand the look of his father's eye. Hearing the beating of the heart even after he killed his father the sound to him grew louder and louder and in the end he confessed what he had done. The narrator wants to show that he is not insane, and offers a story as proof. He may have thought the way he decided to kill his father and how well he thought about hiding the body made him feel that no crazy man are able to do these things. But in reality no sane man would harm their father because of the way his eye looked or even the thought of killing your father is insane itself!