“The Tell-Tale Heart” By Edgar Allan Poe

There are four characters in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the unnamed narrator, the old man who was killed, the neighbour who called police and the police who came to investigate. The narrator tried very hard to cover his insanity and show that he is sane with the intention to not to get suspected by the old man. The old man with a blue eye that the narrator is afraid of, is believed to be the owner of the house, he is innocent and unconscious of what the narrator is doing. In fact, nothing the narrator tells the reader about the old man fits the common definition of insanity, however, it fits the narrator’s definition perfectly as he claims “Madmen know nothing” .

 The story is not only constructed on the physical settings introduced above, the mental setting of the narrator is also an interesting aspect to explore. The narrator felt excited yet confident about the killing of the old man, he was showing off how flawless his plan was to the readers. After the killing, he acted completely sane and calm, meeting with the police without any clue of anxiety. However, as the conversation progressed he got more and more nervous because of the sound of the old man’s heart beat, which arguably could be his imagination, and finally faced his emotional breakdown.

The story starts with the narrator claiming that he is sane, and following this
event the narrator said that he will tell a tale to prove his sanity. Then the narrator gives the background of the story by telling the reader he plans to kill this old man because he is guilty for having a vulture eye, and that the old man himself is not guilty for his death. Every night the narrator brings a lantern and watches the old man. Until one night the old man opened his eyes because the narrator alerted him.
 The narrator got so mad because the old man opened his vulture eye that he ran into the room and suffocated the man with his bed. He then dismembered the body in the bathtub so there is no trace, because he is logical and “sane”. The narrator then hid the body parts under loose floorboards. At 4am, the police came in to search the room shortly after the neighbors heard the old man scream. Nothing was suspicious to the police, but the narrator is hearing heartbeats from under the floorboards. The heartbeats got too loud for the narrator to handle so he confesses his crime to the police. Then the story ends. The sound of “heartbeats” is metaphorically the sound of the inner guilt in the narrator., and this guilt made the narrator admit his crimes.