In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the author uses diction, syntax, and symbolism to develop the narrator’s psychotic character. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator describes a murder that he committed. The narrator says he wants to kill the old man because of his “evil eye”: “for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye” (1). But, the old man’s “eye” could really represent the mindset or soul of the narrator. And, his reason for killing the old man may not be his eye, but really the narrator could be insane and due to that he has urges to kill the old man. The narrator had a very well thought out plan for killing the old man, he “replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye-not even