The Tell Tall Heart Analysis

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.

In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe illustrates how obsession can quickly turn into madness and destroy its victim and those connected to them. The narrator tries to convince us that he is in full control of his thought yet he is experiencing a condition that causes him to be over sensitive. Throughout the story we can see his obsession proving his insanity. The narrator claims that he can be a bit anxious and over emotional, he is not insane. He tries to give proof this through the calmness of his tone as he tells this tale. He then explains how although he has much love for an old man who has always treated him kind, he

“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.

The motivation for murder according to the narrator was “not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye” (Poe 922). However, it is possible that the eye symbolizes a necrosis of the narrator’s spirit. The narrator uses terms such as “infuriate”, “hideous”, “vulture” and “dammed” when describing the eye (Poe 923). These words are often used to describe the demonization of individuals who commit irrational crimes against humanity, such as the crime our narrator is confessing to, the murder and dismemberment of an innocent old man in his sleep. In “The Physiognomical Meaning of Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’”, Edward W. Pritcher states “it

The narrator makes it clear that it was the old man?s eye and not the old man himself that drove him to murder. He says ?I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult,?(Poe 721) which shows that he obviously cared for the man, but this also tells us that the narrator is definitely mentally ill, since no sane person could kill someone he loves, especially over an eye!

Edgar Allan Poe is a known master of the literary arts. For example, the way he uses his razor-sharp senses to perfectly capture people’s attention. In his detailing of the old man's eye he says, “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture...a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees..very gradually..I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Line 11). This particular line evokes the narrator’s source of exaggerated annoyance. The narrator uses this one specific detail to justify the killing of an innocent old man. These ridiculous exaggerations are what makes Poe’s writing so wicked. Many of Poe’s stories like “Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven” are known for being indescribably

All throughout Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” the reader follows along as the narrator explains the eight days where he plotted against the old man. During this explanation, the readers forms an opinion on if the narrator is a calculated killer or mentally insane. It is understandable why some people might think that the narrator is a calculated killer because of the planning that the narrator mentions. However, there are more scenes where the narrator can be interpreted as being mentally insane. Therefore, the narrator is better described as mentally insane because he can “hear” the heartbeat of the old man and he acted upon impulse when he killed the old man.

old man or his eye. It may be his phobia of the dark side, and

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

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a first-person narrative short story that showcases an enigmatic and veiled narrator. The storyteller makes us believe that he is in full control of his mind yet he is experiencing a disease that causes him over sensitivity of the senses. As we go through the story, we can find his fascination in proving his sanity. The narrator lives with an old man, who has a clouded, pale blue, vulture-like eye that makes him so helpless that he kills the old man. He admits that he had no interest or passion in killing the old man, whom he loved. Throughout the story, the narrator directs us towards how he ends up committing a horrifying murder and dissecting the corpse into pieces. The narrator who claims to

In this short novel written by Edgar Allan Poe, we are introduced to the main character the narrator and he is a madman. He starts by “True! Nervous very, very dreadfully nervous” (Poe) we can describe him as crazy, psychotic, but even more so with a narcissist personality. In which he starts off the story by describing himself as this madman and the thoughts he is thinking. The way he speaks of his thoughts catches the readers interest to want to keep reading. He lives with an old man that has a vulture eye as he describes it. The eye is pale blue with a layer over it. The eye bothers him to the degree of planning on how to kill the old man.

In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the poet, Edgar Allan Poe, writes of several different themes. Some of them include time and human nature. However, the most prevalent themes remain as the themes of guilt and insanity. The poem revolves around a man that lives with an old man that has an eye that the narrator fears. He calls it the vulture eye. He believes that it is evil, so he plans to murder the old man. Edgar Allan Poe expresses the themes of insanity and guilt by using the symbols of the beating heart, the vulture eye, and the lantern throughout the poem.

With the story being so short, it is clear that there is thematic symbolism of the elderly man’s eye. The narrator first introduces the eye when discussing why he wanted to kill the old man. In admitting that the man never did him wrong and that he loved him but, he concludes that “it was his eye!” that haunted him. He goes on to describe that “He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” (Poe 691). It is made clear very soon that the eye is not only of importance but also the cause of conflict. The narrator separates the eye, which he calls the “Evil Eye”, from the man. While it is not the old man that is the problem, it is the eye; he says “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 691). The eye is what triggers his ultimate rampage of murder and dismembering. E. Arthur Robison from the University of California explains that “his [the narrator’s] sensitivity to sight is equally disturbing, for it is the old man’s eye which first vexed him and which he seeks to destroy.” There is importance in the idea of the eye triggering an immediate and quick action, the murder, while the rest of the story is prolonged. He

     In Edgar Allan Poe’s short-story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the storyteller tries to convince the reader that he is not mad. At the very beginning of the story, he asks, "...why will you say I am mad?" When the storyteller tells his story, it's obvious why. He attempts to tell his story in a calm manner, but occasionally jumps into a frenzied rant. Poe's story demonstrates an inner conflict; the state of madness and emotional break-down that the subconscious can inflict upon one's self.

At first, I thought the main protagonist in The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, was truly mad, but as the story progressed I got a whole new outlook on the main protagonist. Why do you think the protagonist killed the old man, and then confessed? There are key points to this question, is he a calculated killer or is he just truly mad? The Narrator says there is a motive for murdering the old man, his pale blue eye. “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees-- very gradually-- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever”, this gives the reader a sense of insanity but the motive here is the narrator is a calculated killer. The word choice he uses in paragraph 3, shows how