The Dynamics of a Mad Man In Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator is a dynamic character that uses tone, diction, and first person point of view to exhibits the narrator’s loss of sanity. In the story, the narrator at first seems normal and composed when he set his mind to kill the “old man.” Then his attitude changes when he almost got away with murder.
Poe uses tone to show the narrator’s dynamic behavior. At first, the narrator had no hard feelings with the old man. In fact, he mentions that the old man “never wronged me… never given me insult” (41). Using the word “never” ensures the reader as well as himself that the two never had any problems with each other. His attitude towards the old man begins to change when he mentions about seeing the old man’s eye on page 41. Seeing the eye ignites the narrator to begin thinking differently about the old man, in which raises the tension in the narrator’s words. The narrator
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On page 41, the narrator mentions that his senses were “sharpened” after seeing the old man’s vulture eye. “Sharpened” represents how determine he is to kill the old man. Thus, “sharpened” can be symbolic to an animal instinct taking over him. Along with his senses “sharpened,” his blood also ran “cold” (41). The phrase “blood ran cold” on page 41, indicates the narrator becoming empathetic towards the old man. The old man did nothing against him, but the sight of the vulture eye caused him to turn into a killer. After killing the old man, he can hear the heart beat of the old man still beating “ louder-louder-louder!” (45). Louder empathizes the heartbeat he was hearing from the floorboards, where the old man is rested. However, the use of “louder” (45) several times and the italicized “louder” (45) contribute to the growing guilt of the narrator. Because of his growing guilt, he begins to lose his