Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

Literary Essay “‘Cuz sometimes to stay alive you gotta kill your mind.” These descriptive lyrics from the song Migraine, written by the modern day band Twenty Øne Pilots, tells that the thoughts in one’s mind can make it hard to stay alive, or function as one should. According to the song, in order to keep from emotional harm, one must fight the negative thoughts and emotions. A situation like the one illustrated in the lyrics from Migraine is displayed through a not so modern character. This character is the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”. In this story, the narrator looks back at his actions and attempts to convince himself and the reader that he is not mad. He does this by explaining the fear his older

After murdering the gentleman, the narrator started hearing the beating of his heart. However, the narrator believed that the beating heart belonged to the elder, whom he stashed under the floorboards. Upon the realization that he heard the heart beating, the narrator exclaimed to himself “It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND -- MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON.”(Poe, 3) Previously, the narrator had described the sound of the nervous old man’s heart as a low, dull, quick sound, similar to the sound a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. This is when the narrator started feeling panicked and worried. He knew that he killed the individual, yet the sound of the beating heart was driving him further into insanity. The beating of the heart “grew louder --- louder -- louder”(4) as time passed, and the narrator grew more and more troubled. Naturally, when a person feels guilt, all they can hear is the beating of their heart loud in their ears. Also, the narrator’s previously amidable behavior became one of distress. He “paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides… [he] foamed -- [he] raved -- [he] swore!”(3) The narrator had shown many signs of anguish: pacing, being uncontrollably angry, talking deliriously, and yelling out profanities. It was illustrated throughout pages 3 and 4 of “The Tell-Tale Heart” that the narrator was feeling a strong emotion. However, it was not until the narrator admitted to

Since the narrator’s disease causes him so much fear, it must represent paranoia. The narrator believed that his so-called disease did not dull his senses, but in fact enhanced them. In the narrator’s mind, it was because of his disease that the he “heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. [He] heard many things in hell.”(1) As people can not actually hear sounds coming from their beliefs of the afterlife, it is shown that the narrator is not actually hearing these sounds, but instead believes that he can. Also, the narrator believed that there was something non-human about the eye, for he never refers to the eye as ‘the old man’s eye’, but as the “vulture eye”(2) and just “the eye.”(1) If the narrator believed that the eye was nothing more than an eye, he would not speak of it as if it has a mind of its own. So, it is obvious that the narrator believes that there is something more to the eye, which leads him to be quite paranoid. However, throughout the story the narrator was adamant that he was quite sane. He said on page one “But why will you say that I am mad?...You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work!” The narrator did not understand why he was believed to be insane, and proceeded to explain why he was not. He believed that for