The Tell-Tale Heart Trial

"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 the legs."

In the story The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, The author puts a lot of emphasis on the heart. But what can we infer about the heart? In the story Poe’s character claims to the audience that he was very nervous about the situation but was not insane. He claimed to have a ‘disease’ that made his hearing extra sensitive.  Every night the narrator suspiciously stalks this old man who has this mysterious blue eye with a film over it. The narrator soon feels entrapped by this eye and decides to kill the old man to be set free.

1.Why do you think Poe has set his story at night time, in the night?

Even during the time when the narrator was in the process of hiding the body, he does not find himself insane. The narrator speaks of how is was so cunning and intelligent enough to not get a spot of blood anywhere, of how he placed the boards of the floor precisely as they were before the murder.

In comparison, the narrator was very careful. In the twelfth paragraph, the narrator state, “If you think me mad, you will no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.” This means that he is not insane because he took time to carefully think about what he is going to do with the body. This proves that he is not insane. If he was insane, he wouldn’t have carefully hid the body. The narrator is guilty of first degree murder because of how careful he

Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain” (11), states the narrator. His wife was surely dead according to the

My written task relates to Part IV: Critical Study of Literature. It is based on “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, and I opted to write a psychiatric report of the story’s narrator to demonstrate my understanding of the stylistic devices, structural elements, and literary techniques Poe utilizes to suggest the mental state of the narrator.

“True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” (Poe) In “Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe illustrates that the narrator has an acute need of the old man’s vulture eye and eventually murders the man on the eighth night. The author highlights the events of the murder and soon, the narrator confesses to the police of his guilt. As Edgar Allan Poe fabricates this short story, he enthralls the readers by giving the events specific detail. If Edgar Allan Poe were to ever continue the story where the narrator would be put on trial, he would be guilty of premeditated murder. The reason for this is because the narrator cunningly planned the murder, had a motive of killing the old man, and finally at the end of the short story, he knew from right to wrong.

Furthermore, he realized that his neighbors heard a scream and that they would call the police. The narrator even went as far as to cover up the body and hide it under the tiles of his own home. In addition, since he knew that the police would come to his house because of the shriek, he took precautions beforehand to cover up the body. Not to mention that he even told the police that the scream that the neighbors heard the night before was his from “A bad dream”. This further proves my theory that the narrator was mentally stable at the time of the murder

own chamber. In Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell Tale Heart, the story of this murder is told from the point of view of the killer. The narrator tells of the man’s vulture-like eye, which causes him to murder the man to rid himself forever of the villainy the eye possessed. After the murder, the narrator is haunted by the sound of the man’s beating heart to the point that he has to admit to his felony. In this ghastly tale, the narrator is guilty of premeditated murder because he had a reason to kill the man, knew right from wrong throughout the story, and had a plan to kill the old man in advance.

The narrator butchered the man. That is an indisputable fact. The question is, is he sane? The narrator stalked an innocent man for 8 nights, then brutally murdered and grotesquely dismembered him. He then proceeds to put the body parts under the floor boards. The narrator talks about his surprisingly logical thought process, the careful and perfect execution of his plan, and his terrible guilt as he could hear the dead man’s heart beat. The defense will tell you that this man is an innocent, sedentary man, and that everything he did was the fault of his mental illness, but do not listen to them. This man is deleterious, and it is imperative that he is locked away. The narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” was sane because he could distinguish fantasy from reality, he could feel guilt, and he was thinking logically. This evidence will prove that the narrator is sane.

In “Tell-Tale Heart” written by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator was driven by an “evil eye” to undertake a murderous and dreadful exploit. In the 1800s, when it supposedly took place, people believed the superstition upon “evil eyes” about how they had a painful curse. The narrator had been vexed constantly by a vulture-like eye that belonged to an old man who he especially loved. He was particular and conscientious towards the entire slaughter. This could immediately conclude that the murderer was insane since he took the extent to assassinate someone over an eye. However, the narrator possibly could have been sane and just extremely anxious, therefore guilty, despite how hysterical he may have acted.

In The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is guilty of murder because he was quiet and cautious to watch the old man by taking an hour to put his head through the door and when the narrator dismantles the old man’s body after the narrator suffocated him, he decided to kill the old man over time, and he let the officers into the home and lied to cover up the murder but at the end, he gave in to his guilt and chose to admit the deed to

In the story “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, is about a narrator, that kill and old man because of an idea that came to his brain for the old man’s eye. Once he determines to kill the old man, the narrator formulates a plan that fully acknowledges the effects of his actions. As he begins the explanation of his plan, he assures the readers with a sense of pride “how wisely[he proceeds] with what caution with what foresight with what dissimulation [he goes] to work”(1). The day he had killed him, he felt different. The narrator was just thinking about the man that he had killed. The narrator had killed a man which was an action that could leave to be important. He notices something about the man that is haunting him day and night. Trying to see whatś wrong with, the old man, he notices that “every night just at midnight [he finds] the eye always closed, but the old man who [vexes him, but his eye”(1). Every day it was hunting him down. He was just thinking about, the old man’s evil eye. He thought the old man had an evil eye, so he had a thought to kill the man. The officers came to his house because they suspected from him. Suspecting the narrator's guilty the

One might object here that the narrator lacked the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong. The claim of mental insanity could be supported by the narrator’s abnormal hearing of the dead old man’s heart thumping. “...but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew-louder-louder-louder!” (Poe). It is correct that normal people do not hear dead people’s hearts beating, however, what he likely heard was the sound of his own heart ringing loudly in his ears due to his guilty conscience.