“The Tell-Tale Heart”

Aneesa Baptiste

Prof Raquel Corona

EN 102

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

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 beginning of the story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator insists that he is not insane.  Despite being extremely nervous, the narrator claims that his senses especially his hearing is heightened and not destroyed. To prove he is not insane, the narrator relays an event from his past in a healthy and calmly way. In giving us the listener an accurate account of how he murdered the old man also indicates that he was not insane. He stated “Madmen know nothing”, he's basically saying that he planned out this crime cautiously and cleverly, and by planning a crime you're not insane. Whereas, if you committed a crime without a plan, your considered to be insane. Furthermore, by taking precautions of hiding the remains of the body and making sure that there was no evidence of any murder, the narrator felt clever and cunning in concealing the body. The narrator bought chairs in to the old man’s room and position the chairs on the very spot of where he concealed the body, makes the narrator feels confident that the officers will not find any evident of the murder.

The narrator let his listeners know from the start that he loved the old man and has no personal animosity towards the old man nor does he wants his money. It was his eye that troubled him. He refers the eye as a vulture eye “pale blue […] with a film over it”. The eye angers him so much that he commits murder. To murder someone because their eye angers you is definitely a cause of insanity. After the deed is done, while chatting with the officers, his sense of guilt and paranoia from hearing the beating of the heart, which he presumes to be the old man's made him confess his crime.