Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

“Everyone/Thinks that we’re perfect/Please don’t let them see through the curtains.” These may just be song lyrics from Melanie Martinez’s song “Dollhouse”, but it speaks of a conglomeration of ideas. It represents the fact that many people have internal conflict, and that not all people with minds that are socially or medically considered “functioning” can act in a normal way. The narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart”, a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, is a suitable example of one of those people. In the short story, the narrator has a disease that brings him to fear the old man- his neighbor- to the point that he feels the only solution is to murder him. He attempts to convince both himself and the reader that he is not mad, as he classifies

Throughout this battle, he still believes he has exceptionally sharp senses and a strong mind, and even believes that he can kill the old man without being caught. The narrator ends up killing him, as he fears the old man’s “Evil Eye”, a cataract-ridden eyeball of an old man, which the narrator believes to have malicious intentions and abilities. The police then arrive, where the narrator has a calm demeanor, and convinces the police he did nothing wrong. However, in the end, his heart begins to palpitate from guilt, and he believes this to be the beating of the old man’s heart, even though the old man is dead. This drives him, if possible, to further insanity, and causes him to confess his terrible deeds to the police. These events show that a big theme in this short story is that “the hardest battle is the one inside your mind”, and symbols such as the “Evil Eye”, the narrator’s disease, and the narrator’s beating heart help support

On page 3, the text states “The officers were satisfied. My MANNER had convinced them. I was singularly at ease… But ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone.” This change of extreme calm and not minding the officers to becoming pale and wishing them gone shows how guilt is finally getting to him. Many signs of guilt are pacing, shivering/shaking, getting frustrated, wanting to be alone, losing air, and becoming pale/disoriented. Here, two of those six signs are shown. “Everybody’s Fool” by Evanescence and “Sippy Cup” by Melanie Martinez both relate to this situation, with the lyrics being: “Without the mask /where will you hide?/ Can't find yourself/ lost in your lie./I know the truth now/ I know who you are” and “Kids are still depressed when you dress them up/ Syrup is still syrup in a sippy cup”. Both sets of lyrics show that even though one can try to hide what they are feeling or pretending to be something/someone else, their true self and feelings will eventually show, just like the narrator’s guilt finally began to show and he couldn’t pretend to be calm and innocent anymore. Anyway, more of those six signs appear, with the text on page 3 stating “I gasped for breath-- and yet the officers heard it not”, “Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observation of the men”, and “Oh God! what could I do? I foamed—I raved—I swore!” These show