The Tell-Tale Heart: An Analysis

The narrator dismembers the old man’s body after making sure he was completely dead. He then proceeds to conceal his body parts underneath the floor boards and makes sure he hides all evidence from the crime. The old man’s scream from earlier caused a neighbor to report to the cops and the narrator confidently invites him to look around. He states that the screams came from him after the nightmare he had and that the old man has left after the country. Being that he was so confident that they would not find out about the murder, he provided them chairs to sit in the old man’s room, right above where his body laid and engaged in conversation with them.

So the narrator would watch the old man every night at midnight, then on the 8th night the narrator saw the eye when the old man woke up. So then the narrator kills the old man but suffocates him with the mattress and then dismantles the body. The narrator is insane because he cannot tell real vs fake, control his impulses, and tell from right to wrong. The first example of the narrator's insanity is his inability

Some readers may argue that the narrator is sane because he constantly explains that his actions are sane. However, the narrator is actually insane because the actions that he justifies are very abnormal. The narrator explains that he concealed the body by, “ First of all, [dismembering] the corpse. [He] cut off the head and the arms and the legs” (Poe l 133-134). Clearly, the narrator’s actions mentioned above are not normal. No sane person would be proud of how carefully they concealed a dead body. The narrator is just trying to explain his peculiar actions in a normal way, which he hopes will convince the reader he is sane. Although the narrator justifies himself, the actions he carried out are not even something a sane person would do, therefore making him insane.

The narrator is very careful when he kills the old man. If the narrator thought that his actions would be justified, then he would have acted a little more casual. The narrator is not insane because he takes careful steps to cover his tracks. The narrator takes very careful and detailed steps, leaving the text is very descriptive. The text includes words like cunningly and gently.

“The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and legs.” Most insane people people forget things easily

He couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. One of the reasons to prove he is insane is on the first page of the story he said: “The disease had sharpened his senses - not destroyed - not dulled.” Usually, when you are sick you feel tired and don't want to eat. But the disease had sharpened his senses instead of destroying or dulling his senses. Which makes him sense the presence the evil eye even though he was not there as which was wound on page sixty-one.

The narrator is constantly trying to prove his sanity, yet we can conclude that he actually, if not consciously, subconsciously understands he is going mad. He is the one that first puts the idea of him being mad in the reader?s mind, and he is the one that continually asks how it could be possible that he is mad, which shows that he himself is not sure. He?s trying to prove his sanity in such a desperate way, that I believe it is obvious he must have some idea of his insanity, otherwise he would just state his sanity, rather than trying to prove it.

This gives evidence of him falsifying his madness. He also explains to his mother that he is absolutely not crazy, but instead that part of his plan or craft was for him to fake being mad: "I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft." (III iv 187-188).2

First of all, the narrator was playing it safe. The short-story states, “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded.” Here, he is trying to convince us that he is not insane. The narrator thoroughly thought out his plan for the murder. A madman would have simply just killed the old man with no effort at all.

Poe proposes that the main character is insane by his declarations of sanity. For example, the narrator says that there is no way that he could be insane because he planned the murders so perfectly. In the story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by Edgar Allen Poe, the main character states “Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded--with what caution--with what foresight--with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week I killed him” (388). This quote shows how the narrator actually thinks that he is sane because of the acts that he partakes in during the week that he was going to kill the old man. Another example of this comes from the article, “Ego-Evil and The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by Magdalen Wing-chi Ki, where it notes “In Poe’s stories, Ego-Evil stands out because his hero’s frame of mind is utterly corrupt at its root: the villain can recognize his deviance through the other;

The audience should also notice within the first paragraph where the legal definition of insanity could also be applied. It is here where his words begin to contradict themselves. It is here where he starts to demonstrate a mad man, by accusing the audience of coming to the conclusion that he is mad. He then goes on to imply that if he were mad, he “would be out of control, …profoundly illogical, and not even recognize the implications of his

There four main attributes on being insane, 1) Knowing reality from fantasy, 2) can or cannot manage his own affairs, 3) controllable/uncontrollable, and 4) knowing from right from wrong. To begin with, Mr.Smith didn’t know if he was in reality or fantasy. On page 55, “I heard

In the first few paragraphs of the story, the narrator makes a point of rejecting the idea that he is mad. It almost seems as if he goes out of his way to reassure readers that he is indeed sane. It was at this point that I first got an inclination that the narrator was unreliable, either because he is insane, or just lying. The average person who

The insanity of the narrator is reinforced by what happens in the story. The story starts with the narrator being sane by saying “how calmly i can tell you the whole story.”(pg 56) and following this the narrator said “ i loved the old man. Never given me an insult.”(pg 56). Putting that quote in explains how he loves the man and that the old man would never do anything to him. The narrator starts telling the reader he plans to kill his old man because he has a vulture eye, and that the old man is not guilty for his own death. Every night for eight nights, the narrator brings a lantern and watches the old man sleep. Until one night the old man wakes up, and the narrator comes in and suffocates him with his bed sheets because he saw the vulture

So as a result of pure hatred to the old mans eye, he derived a plan to get rid of the old man entireley so as not to see the eye ever again. Thus showing he is not insane if he was able to control himself while coming up with the plan and having the mental ability to fully understand his actions