Letter To Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

Maurice FitzGerald Rational + Written Task 1 19-4-2014
Rationale:
In this written task I have produced, I will show my understanding of the course work by writing a letter. This letter will be a correspondence between the narrator of the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” and an old friend of his/hers. My idea was to show his final attempt to seek understanding before he is sent to the gallows for murder, as was the usual punishment for such a crime. I have decided to write this letter to show what literary devices Edgar Allan Poe uses to depict an unreliable narrator and his apparent loss of sanity, as well as the sense of paranoia which is implemented. A letter between the protagonist/antagonist and an old friend was a good way to show

Whilst I know we have avoided contact for decades, I feel I need to share my last consensus with someone I deem valuable. I hope you understand my will, and won’t take to it grudgingly. Ultimately I hope you can send a reply before I am sent to the gallows. I would like one final conformation whether I am truly insane or not.
I believe you once met the old man with whom I lived. The polite, old man, who had never wronged me, never had given insult to me and who I had even loved. But it was not the old man who burdened me of grief. It was that terrible, terrible vulture-like eye. They tell me I am insane for what I did, but could a madman have executed a plot of murder so perfectly? Could a madman have acted with such precision and caution? I executed my brilliant plan with patience and confidence. I had to – for since the idea had entered my mind, I had been haunted by the eye. It was that Evil Eye which vexed me. It was that pale blue eye which I needed to get rid of. Call me a madman? It is but a mere over acuteness of senses I have attained. I may have been nervous then, and I am very much so now, but I am not

I have a disease. It causes my senses to be overly sensitive. I am certain I did not imagine that heartbeat. I killed the old man. I did so in an act of perfection. No madman could have performed the murder, and for that matter, the concealment of the old man with such wise precautions. I was rational. I dismembered the body and hid it. Without stains and no evidence, there was no way anyone could have caught me. I had to be sane to achieve that, did I not? In addition to that, those officers, whom I had so convinced with my manner, were surely going to leave. But they heard it. I am sure of it. They knew, and they heard it too. They heard the heartbeat, how could they not? They were making a mockery of me. I could no longer bear the situation. My senses were not failing me and I was sure I was being held a